Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Writing, Thoughtful, Intelligent
Review: I'm ashamed to admit it now, but before I read this book I was convinced that women with eating disorders were shallow, apolitical, rather clueless. In Marya's case, her eating disorder was a hyperintelligent and ambitious (albeit, misguided) attempt to prove that the mind was more powerful than the body and all that the body needed. Sexual needs were also to be denied. He self-loathing for having any kind of emotional needs started when she was a small child.My conclusion after reading this book is that eating disorders are not caused by conformity or vanity, but by a commitment to prove that one has no needs, no dependencies, no weaknesses. Why this gets distorted into the goal of an emaciated female body probably rests on society's insistence that women look a particular way that requires denying food. Food goes from necessity to neediness. I don't know. I wish I had an answer. I'm fat, I like my body, I like exercise, I like to eat and I like sex and I rage against people who say I shouldn't. It's a hard battle - but I doubt it's as hard as slowly killing yourself with an eating disorder.
Rating:
Summary: Marya's High School Classmate Remembers
Review: I was at Interlochen Arts Academy with Marya. I was there for those late night discussions about the calorie content of a marshmellow. I spent the first night after I read Marya's book crying because so many of those we grew up with went down the same path. _Wasted_ is the most true story I have ever read. I hope that this book will serve as a wake up call for anyone who does not take a young women's obcession with food seriously. Anorexia is an evil enemy that is murdering the young women of America, yet there is no organized campaign to fight it. Where are the public service announcements, the pink ribbons, the postage stamps, the marches on Washington? I hope that those of us who fought the same fight that Marya describes can finally come together to fight for our survival, and that of our sisters. Marya has reminded us of just how hard it is to battle anorexia and come out alive. Only by joining together, without shame or guilt or fear, can we destroy this monster once and for all.
Rating:
Summary: "You just don't get anorexia the way you get a cold"
Review: Maryna explains that starving to disappear, "the act of becoming invisible, is, in fact, a visible act, and rarely goes unnoticed."
This is by far the most intense, REAL book on eating disorders I have come across in my 5 or 6 year struggle. Hornbacher's witty, sarcastic narrative is hard to put down and I reluctantly reliquished my copy of Wasted to my best friend who wants very much to understand what I go through. I believe if people are willing to give it a chance and be prepared to be disheartened and depressed, they can get an excellent idea of what the diease is like. It may be hard for some people to read but you know what, it's a hell of a lot harder to try and live through.
Rating: 
Summary: Great read!
Review: I think a lot of women will recognize themselves in this book. Our society is so obsessed with weight control and being thin. It's everywhere you look. I can't wait for the day when women can feel good about themselves and JUST ENJOY LIFE. I have been bulimic for 12 years. I don't think it has to do with my "weight" anymore. I look "normal"...whatever that is...... I wish I could stop. I'm glad she wrote the book. At least I know that I am not alone. I wish her the best.
Rating:
Summary: for every woman, a must read
Review: This book was so powerfull, it pulls you in and sucks you under, not unlike anorexia and bulimia themselves. As someone who is struggling to gain control of my own eating disorder, i found an odd sense of comfort to hear my own words echoed by someone else, right there in print. When she talks about being torn between two lovers, anorexia and bulimia, going from one to the other, it hits me how serious my own addiction to the both are. Her words of pain, hunger, they will help even people without eating disorders to begin to understand. If only in a small way, becuase sometimes, she seems so out of control, so undeniably crazy, how could anyone understand only weighing fifty two pounds and still not eating? Her words are haunting, there are no pat answers, and she dosent seem to struggle to find any to give us. Those of us who are reading and struggling with our own demons will know by the end that it is not the end, you are never completley recovered, and it is so easy to sllip back into an old lovers embrace. I often felt when i was reading this book that she was reading my mind, her words are blunt and she pulls no puches. A truly disturbing and passionate look into the real day to day life of living the nightmare of an eating disorder, not the usual glossed over, becomes a movie of the week crap. She says that she wrote this book to keep others from taking the same path she did, and i hope it does help. for others like me who are already on the same path with her, it was a slap of reality. How truly bad things can get if you dont get help, or at least never stop trying to get well. I highly recommend it for women with and without eating disorders, any woman in today's "thin is in" society. This may be a difficult read for the friends or family of those with eating disorders, but it is well worth it if you want a brutal look into your loved ones life. I wish i could thank the author personally, for what must have been a incredibly hard journey to write about her own struggles with this ! disease.
Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable story by a brave, utterly human writer
Review: I am grateful to Marya for pointing out that there is no one straight line from dieting to dieting more to anorexia. This is an incredibly complex, thought provoking book, one I cannot forget.
Rating:
Summary: AWESOME! OUTSTANDING!
Review: "Wasted" is the most powerful book I have read in years! I have a whole library of books on eating disorders, having struggled with the illness myself for years, and this is by far the best, most gutrenching account of what its really like!
Rating:
Summary: This book deserves to be required reading for everyone
Review: I truly appreciated the honest and no holds-barred approach that Marya Hornbacher took in writing this book. She is a brave woman who through sharing her pain has quite possibly saved many lives, definately many souls. I have yet to read a book that so clearly defines the laws a anoretic or a bulemic makes up and revolves their world around and because of this book I didn't feel so alone or so 'crazy.' God bless her. If I could I would thank her in person, and I regret that she will never know the impact her writing has had on her readers.
Rating:
Summary: It's an extraordinary look at eating disorders-a real one.
Review: If you have read many books about eating disorders, you are sure to be taken aback by this one. Marya is has a unique, intriguing writing style..I couldn't read this book fast enough. Thank you, Marya, for writing this REAL look at eating disorders...one that acknowledges the ongoing struggle, one that finally admits that eaitng disorders will never be completely cured, BUT that they can change, and become smaller, or less intrusive. I recommend this book to people that are trying to understand eating disorders from an outsiders view, and to eating disorderd people that are working on recovery.
Rating:
Summary: A journey to hell, over and over again
Review: I have read many, many books about eating disorders. Yet Marya Hornbacher's 'Wasted' was the first to take the reader into the true hell of eating disorders--the hungers, obsessions, self-hatred, pain, lies, and deprivations. This book made me ache as I recognized the habits and tendencies of so many members of my generation. I was forced to put it aside several times so that I could to take everything in. If you or anyone you know has ever had body image problems: Read it. If you know what it's like to lean your head against the cold porcelain of the toilet seat and cry, pleading with God to help you get the last of your pig-out up, and at the same time yelling at him for making you fat, the message is clear: You are not alone.
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