Rating: 
Summary: Close, but only half a cigar
Review: I approached this book with an experiential bias, being a nearly 30-year-old woman who suffered from anorexia and bulimia for about 15 years. Most of my physicians don't understand why I'm alive today, as I was close to death's door on many occasions, and have done lasting damage to my body. In short, my battle with EDs is not necessarily better or worse than Hornbacher's-- which might enable me to empathize with her, I thought.Not entirely so. While I recognized every one of Hornbacher's "tricks" and mind games, and had implemented all of them (and a few that she didn't mention!) myself, I still felt that her explanations about the etiology of her disease were at times too pat. Anorexia/bulimia isn't about having a svelte figure, and I don't believe it's about parental neglect either-- nor is it about being a "poor little rich (or upper-middle-class) girl." Sure, Hornbacher ascribed other reasons for her disorder-- a general psychic falling-out between the mind and the body-- but I felt that the old cliches hovered over the story as a whole, doing a disservice to women (like myself) who are not "typical" victims of the disease. I'm impressed that such a young writer could sustain an autobiography/memoir this effectively, but I had trouble with her authorial voice at times. Her tough defensiveness, interspersed with self-pity (Look, I'm unflinching! Oops, now I'm flinching!) seemed abrasive to me after a while. It's unfortunate to say that I didn't much like the author, but unfortunately, when dealing with a memoir, the author's personality does come under scrutiny, and affects the book in its entirety-- and in "Wasted," I think the effect is negative. Hornbacher is no patron saint of eating disorders, nor is she particularly representative of anything other than the usual bag of tricks, although she is honest and does occasionally demonstrate a nice turn of phrase.
Rating: 
Summary: This books great, yet triggering
Review: I thought this book was great! It showed every aspect of an eating disorder. I was suffering with anorxia as I read this and it was some what triggering. I would not recommend it for those still suffering. If you are trying to learn about ED's this is the book to read.
Rating:
Summary: into thin air
Review: This is an absolutely terrifying account of one woman's experience with a disease that literally eats her body, mind, and soul. It's is not written to gain envy or pity just to spread awareness of a disease that attracts, then attacks many young women worldwide. It's a truthful description of her downward spiral into the black hole of eating disorders. I think this is a book that should be given to all adolescent girls (although Hornbacker's problems started long before she ever hit her teenage years). It is at that time that a woman may feel very insecure about the changes in the her body and may be more susceptible to the ideals presented by society of what beauty is and/or should be. This memoir reads more like a case study than anything else. Hornbacher doesn't truly allow the reader into her emotional self. She constantly reminds the reader that she is alone in her journey by interjecting references on every other page...but you will feel....you will feel...because it is one of the most horrific texts that you will ever read. This are images that will never escape you.
Rating:
Summary: Honestly, People!
Review: Okay, I am reading these reviews and I am seriously sickened. I, too, have suffered from an eating disorder and can TOTALLY relate to Marya. If you think that this book is full of self-pity, you need to read it again. This is the most startling honest book I have EVER read. Throughout the book, Marya takes full responsiility for her disease. While she mentions that her mother's family was a little eating disordered itself, she never BLAMES it. In fact, in the book she says that she had a for the most part loving home and family life. Some have complained that she speaks of herself and of others as objects. When you have an eating disorder this is the way you feel. As though your body is some how seperate from yourself. Like it is this imperfection that is holding the "great" you that is underneath the fat just waiting to come out as soon as you have earned it. And the way you earn it just happens to be completely destroying yourself. I have often looked at my mind and my body as two separate entities instead of one and the same. The problem with the eating disorder is to realize that when you are destroying your body you are destroying the mind. I have spent many days of my life only consumed with thoughts of bingeing and purging and how I was going to make them happen. Through reading this book I have been able to see that the eating disorder is now in control, not me. Only when you realize this can you truly overcome the monster that is the ED. And as for those who read this book for "tips": You are TRULY SICK and this book is not going to make you sicker. Those who seek to self destruct will do it anyway, whether they learn their methods from Marya Hornbacher or some other source.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This book has helped me understand what is behind eating disorders. I have suffered for years and this book has finally enable me to say enough is enough and end it. It is also an excellent choice for family and friends of the eating disordered because it is written in such a personal way that you understand the thoughts and feelings of those with the disease. I highly reccommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Honest Courageous Truth
Review: This book not only tells it like it is, Ms. Hornbacher's memoir gets behind the psychology and emotions of her disease. It not only tells her story, it rips your chest wide open and pulls out your heart. Read this one with a highlighter pen nearby. There is a little of each of us in this book. If you're bulimic, or recovering from an eating disorder - be sure to insist that your Shrink reads this book before paying $200 an hour per session...
Rating:
Summary: A Brilliant Story of Courage
Review: Wasted transcends the autobiographical recovery story as well as the impersonal eating disorder psycho analysis. Hornbacher's unique position here as intelligent writer and eating disorder sufferer enables her to write a masterful book combining the theory in her head with the experience in her body. Her descriptions of her symptoms will leave you feeling raw, while her references to the social and cultural systems which have fostered eating disorders will leave you feeling enlightened. Never before have I read an individual so able to eloquently describe the personal torment she endured as a result of her eating disorder. This is not a glorified description of starving, and throwing up, but rather a depiction of a very sick individual in a great amount of physical and emotional pain. Although most of the subject matter is deeply personal, I was amazed by the intellectual perspective she had in writing the book. She is very good at analysing herself. In short, this book is an excellent read for anyone interested in eating disorders or the human struggle to live.
Rating:
Summary: Yet Another Caution
Review: Absolutely, this book is riveting-- hideously breathtaking. It is also a book that all of us with eating disorders will empathize with to an almost dangerous extent. I do agree that this book is necessary reading for anyone who is close to a person with an eating disorder, and like the many people who reviewed this book, would recommend that people afflicted approach this book with trepidation. Sylvia Plath's ARIEL is probably not the book of poetry you would counsel someone to read if they were suicidal, and, in the same manner, Hornbacher's WASTED has a similarly upsetting, intoxicating, engaging effect, and it is equally possible that those who fight bulemia and aneorexia will find such pain & joy in finally stumbling upon someone whom speaks the reality of these diseases with such little mincing, that they will feel as if they've found a hero, and, as we do with heroes, forget to question her in relation to us as individuals. I know that my experiance with this book was that I found it necessary to stop, take a deep breath & search for my own voice of sanity, because the insanity of my disease was so similar to hers (as I've seen mentioned quite frequently in these reviews). Even after 5 years in recovery, I had to forcibly distance myself, not to stop myself from falling back in, but to remind myself that recovery is as much a part of these diseases as the years of abuse. Most importantly, I believe, is that it is impossible to dissuade those who suffer from reading this book-- we need someone who gets this disease out there, who acknowledges the seriousness of these cycles-- that it is no small crisis and that it can consume your life and fell your emotional, material, romantic, & physical goals on every level. But be careful, Marya is right-- those who recover will always deal with it-- recovery is a day to day goal, its not feasible to even think of it in terms of completion-- however, this is a book that deals with the pain and the torment of crisis, not the pain & the torment of slowly clamoring to life. The journey back from active bingeing, purging & starving is an equally compelling story, and it is possible that it can be told with the same brutality and honesty that it is in WASTED. I hope that Hornbacher makes that effort, there is a way back from active compulsion, even if those Demons remain a part of you forever.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put this one down.
Review: This is the best book I have read in a long time. The author is a very talented writer. It kept you on the edge of your seat. It had me so gripped I actually felt the feeling of Marya and what a horrible craziness her disease was. This woman has experienced it all, and she tells it all. A very honest depiction of her life. Must read!
Rating:
Summary: Brutal truth
Review: Marya Hornbacher holds nothing back as she shares the gritty details of how mind and body meet near destruction when they play with the unrelenting world of eating disorders. Few writers dare to bare all, as Hornbacher has. She shows in depth knowledge and genuine concern for society and others who bear the burden of eating disorders.
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