Rating: 
Summary: thankyou marya !
Review: i related so much to this book, that i suddenly don't feel so along in the trapped under world of eating disorders. this is a beautifully written, yet heart wrenching account of a young woman's struggle through the torments that eating disorders have upon some of us. i was never "disgusted" by this book at all......the personal hell this woman has put herself through is very frightening yet intrieging at the same time. i recommend this book to anyone out there who is close to someone whom is eating disordered....i garentee you will have a slightly better understanding of what some of us really think and what lengths we will go to.
Rating:
Summary: hm.
Review: i don't know if it's quite fair to condemn ms. hornbacher for her way of telling her story. i can see your point, but i doubt she set out planning to gather up hordes of impressionable girls and invite them into the realm of eating disorders. i think she had to be candid and personal, or else the point would not have come across so harshly and therefore truthful. of course it was dangerous and perhaps even unwise for her to write so openly. but you've got to take into consideration that there's danger in writing any book. discussing drug abuse, self-mutilation, eating disorders..they can all be risky, triggering subjects. ms. hornbacher wrote the book because she felt she needed to get her voice out. she is not responsible and not in control of the way her book affects others, she is not in control of other people's minds. if someone is desperate enough to buy 'wasted' simply for the 'anorexic tips', then maybe it's just as well that they pick it up. hopefully, for their sake, they'll read what is placed before them and take the hint.
Rating: 
Summary: Tricks of the trade: How to become Anorexic
Review: I rushed to buy this book when it came out in hardcover, I devoured it in three days. But as I was reading it I kept having diminishing thoughts about myself. This book gives intimate details of how and what an anorexic does to become thin. I was once an anorexic myself and yes, you never completly recover. When writing a published book that goes out to millions you need to focus on what needs to be done to fix the problem called low self esteem in young women. I also have wrote a memoir of sort where I rely all my doings when I was anorexic but I would never share this with anyone. Because I would not want to be the inspiration for another girl to go through the torture that I went through. I think this author did this more for publicity and personal gratification than trying to help others become aware of what things need to be done to prevent deathly mental illness.
Rating:
Summary: this is it
Review: the bottomline: if you're looking for a sob-story, oh pity me, distasteful and badly written book about eating disorders, this is not one to choose. perhaps you'd like to pick up a copy of steven levenkron's 'the best little girl in the world', if what you desire is a boring, wholly imaginative tale. now, on the other hand, if what you're searching for is an honest, well-written, no-holds-barred, unflinching look at the beast of an eating disorder, this book is for you. marya hornbacher writes with more passion, more detail, more..rhythm? than most female writers i've seen to date. she is indeed an artist, and she tells her story with truth, color, and pace. it is true that this is a dangerous book..it pulls you in and doesn't let go. leaves you looking for more. a part of that is due with the anticlimatic ending--hornbacher is not cured, is not entirely well, she's merely treading heavy waters, and you fear for her. i purchased the book tentatively, unnerved because, in the past, all of the autobios pertaining to mental illness or eating disorders were poorly written and fragmented. but i was very happy that i took the time and energy to go to the post office, buy that money order,(anti-credit card!)fill it out, and shove it in the 'out of town' slot. hornbacher writes with a passion, a purpose, and does a damn good job at giving the reader a first-hand glimpse at the disruption an eating disorder can ravage on the psyche.
Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Book!
Review: As a writer I have to say that this book is very well written. It is not a text book in any way; it is a book about a real person and her experiences with an eating disorder. I have read many books about eating disorders, and none compare to this. I have read this book 5 times, and whenever I feel the need for a good book I open it again. Marya is a wonderful writer, and I hope to see more of her work in print.
Rating:
Summary: HORNBACHER SHOWS US THE TRUTH
Review: After reading several reviews of Mayra Hornbacher's WASTED, I feel compelled to respond to the book myself. I have suffered from the consequences of my own bad "habit" of bulimic behavior patterns for the better part of my adult life. A year ago, when this book practically jumped off the shelf into my hands, I read it all in one day. My first reactions to Hornbacher's lucid depiction of the damage she inflicted on herself again and again included anger and disgust: how dare she be so honest about her feelings of being out-of-control, her hideously painful purges, without tacking on a Beverly Hills 90210-like public service announcement at the end of every chapter? I wanted a Hollywood happy ending, not because it would make the book more accurate, but because it would make me -- and perhaps those around me -- believe that an eating disorder is easy to recover from, that it's not as life threatening as she makes it out to be...that it's not THAT serious. After all, according to some of the reviewers I've read here, psychologically induced suffering is not "real," right? She could just "stop" at any time, couldn't she? Well, maybe...but I don't know many other mentally illnesses (eg: manic depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder or addiction) that tend to disappear quite that simply; such transformations are usually attributed to miracles for a reason. Why do we feel it's necessary to try to quantify others' suffering, anyway? Since our culture tells us that material advantage solves all problems in a snap, maybe it's a bit too much of a bubble-burster for people to contemplate the reality that stands in stark relief against this suggestion without accusing her of self-pity...yes, even a person with access to many doctors and hospitals can suffer from relapse after relapse...mental illness is not self-indulgence; mind-control exercises can help, but, as anyone skilled in training their minds will tell you, such training can take years of hard work, day after day, before it yields any positive results...in the meantime, the negative habit energies reign supreme. Finally, having grown up in literally the same environment that Hornbacher experienced, and a year after reading the book for the first time, I can now see that hers is not a story of self-pity, but an account of what can happen when a person -- and especially a young woman -- internalizes contemporary social cues (get skinny/deprive yourself/martyr yourself for "beauty" at any cost and you will be happy and loved) for how to ease the most basic of human conditions: suffering. I applaud Hornbacher's tough-minded prose. Her unflinching look at herself and her taking of responsibility for the consequences of her actions -- painfully deluded by a skewed self-perception as they were -- make her a real hero for those of us who struggle daily with the consequences of a bad habit that set in, for many of us, at the same time that most kids were trying beer and cigarettes for the first time. But, unlike overindulgence in those relatively "acceptable" social habits, overindulgence in trying to control one's body shape and size is not an obsession dubbed "immature" by our culture; it is not a condition considered undesirable at any time in a woman's lifespan; how pathetic is it that American children, when polled, say they would rather lose a limb than be fat! I hope that, someday, fashion magazine editors, like tobacco companies paying for lung cancer patients' operations, will pay the hospital bills for recovering anorectics and bulimics, and that eating disordered women (4 out of every 10 college age women) will be able to get health insurance coverage with minimal hassles, rather than having their health issues shunted off into the realm off "oh, you silly girl, it's not THAT serious" when even a month of bulimia -- as a fifteen year old who chose food, perhaps because it's NOT illegal -- can damage the esophagus, kidneys, teeth, and heart irreparably. Books like Hornbacher's annihilate any chance anyone has of EVER glamorizing eating disorders...I hope people who've read WASTED will think of her sufferings the next time they hear a crass joke about bulimics or anorexics or compulsive eaters in general...eating disorders are not funny. Hornbacher goes to great pains to show us the truth: eating disorders are deadly.
Rating:
Summary: an exceptional book
Review: This is a wonderful, touching, informative book about personality as much as it is about eating disorders. The author is an incredible, talented writer. I read this book and I'm gonna buy it anyway to own it.
Rating:
Summary: Oh, good grief
Review: This book is awful. Like many of the other reviewers, I have also had an eating disorder--I struggled for 9 years with bulimia. I was looking forward to this book, but unfortunately, it really does reinforce the popular stereotype that people with eating disorders are rich, spoiled neurotics looking for attention from parents and classmates. Judging from Ms. Hornbacher's present-day interludes in the book, she's STILL on the same schtick. She beats the reader over the head with a nobody-knows-the-trouble-I've seen refrain, because of course, none of us can contemplate the pain she's gone through. But this is a young woman who was surrounded by loving, caring families, friends, etc...and brought her problems on herself. The way she glamorizes her eating disorder (and her "epic struggle") is not only irresponsible but disgusting. Wonder what follow-up book we'll get in the future.
Rating: 
Summary: Wasted worthwhile
Review: I thought that the author of this book did a very good job of avoiding self-pity in her writing. This book was very descriptive and allowed me to visualize a lot of the events that took place. She (the author) was very careful not to let her perceptions of what she thought went on during her struggles with bulimia interfere with what really happened to her during that time. When she described her experiences with bulimia, like throwing up after binging and drinking beer, the details of her throwing up and the physical descriptions of the vomit and how she felt made it seem as though I was there experiencing what she was.
Rating: 
Summary: Regurgitated Reality
Review: As I read "Wasted" I realized that the rollercoasted of Marya Hornbacher's life Is how I as the reader begins to feel. Every time she began to get sick my own stoach began to feel hollow , as if I could have started reading from any point in the book and would have been just as interested. With repeat sickness also came repeat reading . A timeline of reptitive actions, Regurgitated With thoughts and feelings . Though I belive as you go through her life you can feel her joy and sadness. When she is actually doing well you feel light and happy , But whan Marya is having a relapse , you too feel unable to digest enough care free reading to make this an easy , fun reading experience. I myself began to copy a few habits she had Like when I started to read that Marya was on the downfall , My consuming of the story was ended. She used the Doritoes as a marker , I used the hospital reports as a bedtime marker. Although I personally did not care for "Wasted" I could relate some of her thoughts and reasons for her actions. And for that I feel my time was not Wasted, rather I enjoyed thinking about how she reacted to everyday problems.I dont mean to slam the book , but I would like to say this is not a book for everyone.
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