Wasted : A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

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Summary: A window on an oft misunderstood socio-emotional problem
Review: For most of us, food comprises a comforting element of our daily routine. For sufferers of anorexia or bulimia it becomes the single most important thing in their lives, simultaneously saviour and damnation. Hornbacher allows us a very personal look into a truly frightening disease which is usually hidden by its sufferers in this well written & very engaging memoir. Though providing no real insight into possible causes, Hornbacher nonetheless has here crafted a valuable tool to be used by those wishing to understand this confusing disorder by sharing with us her experiences from early development of symptoms through acceptance and treatment. As we are shown, this disease is as damaging to friends and family as it is to the sufferer as they attempt to come to terms with the idea that one of their own is attempting to destroy themselves. Hornbacher characterizes it well as a wish not to simply make oneself smaller, thinner, or more trim, but-taking it a step further-a wish for a dissolution of the body, a total separation of psyche and physical existence.

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Summary: amazing, yet . . .
Review: I thought this book was amazing. SO well written. I could not put it down; stayed up two nights to read Wasted and finished it in 3 days. Most accurate, detailed account I've ever read of an eating disorder. Yet does anybody else find it odd, ironic, painfully worth noting, that the cover of the book presents Hornbacher's own image, something she has been struggling with/against for (almost) a lifetime?

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Summary: Horrible & fantastic
Review: Reading Marya Hornbacher's account of her descent into the hell of multiple eating disorders is like staring at a fatal car crash--you can't bear to look, and yet you can't look away. It's the same dynamic here: the wreckage is just as simultaneously revolting and compelling. And we look, truth be told, for just about the same reason: our undeniable fascination with human suffering and death. Hornbacher's tale is tantamount to a drawn-out near-death experience, as she explains to the reader over and over. No pretty lights, no sense of connectedness, no universal peace here, though. Hornbacher's trip was one through the outskirts of hell, and she relays it with jarring honesty and as much self-awareness as we human beings can muster. She's a brilliant and incisive writer, weaving here an urgent memoir that has the magnetic force of the best fiction. The book's inconsistencies, rampant contradictions, and tedious obsessions only enhance it as a glance behind the eyes of one seriously disturbed young girl. It's horrible; it's fantastic.

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Summary: Very honest!!
Review: I found this book to hit very close to home in its description of the thoughts and behaviors that some of us with eating disorders exhibit. I found Marya's honesty to be very moving, and I hope that it will continue to be an inspiration for me.

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Summary: Finally an honest look at eating disorders!
Review: As a female who has struggled with eating disorders for the past 6 years, I have read nearly every "eating disorder" novel to date. While most are written by outsiders, those who do not live each day with the struggle, Wasted is written by a woman who has traveled through the realm of eating disorders. Wasted takes an honest look at the causes and the effects of anorexia and bulimia. It does not glamourize the outcome. It does not portray eating disorders as simple things that sufferers "choose" to begin and end. Marya's account is truthful. Her writing is haunting, at times she speaks as if she is outside of herself. The reader can see how complex eating disoders are, however, they can also see what eating disorders are: shallow, decietful, selfish, useless, and a waste. Perhaps the only complaint I have is that the ending was not optimistic. But that's eating disorders. As you travel through their maze, you begin to wonder what recovery is. Marya speaks for women like myself who are victimes of themselves. Thank god someone finally wrote an account of what eating disorders ARE and not what they are SUPPOSED TO BE according to our society. Thank you Marya.

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Summary: Inspired by Courage
Review: How can you define that which is real to you?I don't have any words to describe this book.Marya's honesty and courage never flinch.She does not pander,she does not tiptoe around or sugarcoat the truth.That is what makes her real.That is what gives _Wasted_ the power it has.

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Summary: I thought Hornbacher to be very eloquent and very real.
Review: Nothing I have ever read touched me quite like this book did. As a sufferer of eating disorders, I picked up this book with interest. Hornbacher describes the disorder in vivid and real terms. I've never read anything that described how I felt as clearly as "Wasted."

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Summary: Honest, compelling - needs more
Review: This is a wonderful account of Anorexia and Bulimia. A well researched depiction of cultural stigmas, family dysfuntcion, and the inner voice of an Anorectic. The book fails, however, to tackle the most poignant issue of identity and eating disorders. Just when I thought Hornbacher would tackle it - she lets the reader down. For instance, when she talks about other eating disordered individuals helping eachother out - being the best counselor to another anorectic or bulimic - she surmounts this to competition - but fails to explore what the competition involves. For so many eating disordered individuals there is an emptiness of self, a lack of identification with self - a total lack of identity. Anorexia/Bulimia tends to become the identity of eating disordered individuals. "If I'm Anorexic, at least I'm someone, something, and it has a name, who could dispute the existence of identity - when it has a name?" This is usually the root of the competitiveness of eating disordered individuals, try to make the others well so the identity can be solely owned. It's a very strong trigger for relapse for many individuals and usually it's so subconscious - it's hard to admit. It can also be perceived by many to be a selfish act - to try to claim an illness as identity - but what it really illustrates is the depths of despair the individual truly feels about their own identity. Either they can't stand the one they have so much they need a new one or they are so empty they need any (albeit sick, Anorexic/Bulimic) to fill the desperate void. To chump this struggle up to competition seems careless to me and illustrates to me that Hornbacher has not humbled herself to come to terms with this issue as of yet. It seems even more evident in the recent interviews I've read with her - where she describes her recent relapse and recent hospitalization. She's yet to forgo the identity of "Anorectic or Bulimic" and that is dangerous as she travels the world and talks about her book. It speaks volumes to the inability to detach the eating disorder identity from self. It offers little hope to the many individuals who will read the book, read the interviews, and follow her career in search for hope. This scares me and tends to overshadow the whole book for me. As if it's on the market to claim her identity as an eating disordered individual and that certainly doesn't scream self-pity, self-sacrifice, or the common and recognizable faux pas of memoir writing. . .but at the same time it still claims more to reinforce the disorder than to help dispel it. I hope she will continue writing. I did think the book was well researched, honest (to the extent that Hornbacher can be honest with herself)and a beautiful depiction of the insane rules and rituals the mind can and will insist upon when trying to establish some sense of internal control and strength. I do wish, however, she would focus less on the relapses she has endured, the continuing battle she ensues when interviewing. . .this offers little hope to the audience she claims to be trying to inform and save from this inferno.

Rating:
Summary: Sarcastically honest, witty and compelling...
Review: Marya has an interesting way with words. You'll laugh at her dry sense of humor but cringe with guilt due to the severity of the subject matter. This young woman's battle with bulimia and anorexia is a sad yet successful one. Though, throughout the book, not a drop of self pity... not an ounce of shame, apparantly. She wastes no time getting down and dirty about her struggle; and spares no details. I laughed at Marya's blunt approach yet felt a bit sorry for her at the same time. She asked for no sympathy; but it was an unavoidable response.

Rating:
Summary: Hauntingly accurate portrayal of a private madness
Review: I read Wasted one year after my last relapse from my own "anorectic behaviors" that threatened once again to take me under into that "netherworld" that Marya speaks so eloquently about. This book speaks to the soul of the eating disorder sufferer as well as anyone who has battled some sort of obsession. Marya's writing pricks even the most numb of hearts at the same time that it softens the hearts of those who do not seem to have a clue about the real distress and turmoil that anorectics/bulimics suffer. Wasted made me take a look at my own "I'm-perfectly-recovered-attitude" and realize that it is only another attempt at denying my own disease. Unfortunately I realized this while experiencing through someone else's eyes the "glamour" and "high" that I once felt through starvation. This book made some people want to eat again...for me it was so incredibly real that I had to take a few days off from eating in order to "digest" the book.