Rating: 
Summary: an honest look on eating disorders
Review: Marya Hornbacher's book kept me awake a couple of nights, reading. It's a terrifying book, an honest, brutal, personal account of her eating disorder, an eating disorder that came close to killing her. What I specifically liked was that eating disorders are not seen in a simplistic way in this book. They are seen as the complex & dangerous problems they are. Reading this book, you'll probably feel disgusted, angry, and surely sad at times. But mostly you'll take a deep look into the image that society makes us strive toward: the image of the perfect, beautiful, succesful, thin at all costs, calm & controlled individual. I think these stereotypes are extremely dangerous, & they make people (such as the author herself) get caught up in their image & forget about their soul & their true needs. Killing yourself, slowly, just to achieve the "perfect" body, the perfect image, is a trap that unfortunately many, many women (and men,too) fall into nowadays. It's probably society's way of keeping women "in their right place". Hornbacher's book is very disturbing because it's very personal. It doesn't hold anything back, it describes the lies, the self-deceit, the ignoring of friends & family that love you, the secret pride in the identity you've achieved, even though it's a fundamentally problematic identity...& of course the actual medical danger that comes with eating disorders. I think it's an intelligent look on the subject, useful for anybody who wants to learn more about it. I especially appreciated the fact that nothing was black or white, not even recovery: Marya Hornbacher accepts that recovery is an ongoing process, an everyday struggle that she'll have to live with for the rest of her life, & this makes the book even more honest & real. The ending of the book is not really an ending in the way we usually mean the word: it's more some kind of conclusion, the beginning of new things, & the slow but steady change that has started to happen in her life.
Rating:
Summary: Loved this book!
Review: I have to admit, I loved this book. It was definitely disturbing and frightening . . . a no-holds-barred look at eating disorders. I am amazed at the clarity and honesty the author shows throughout. At times it made my stomach turn, and the thought of being so thin people could see the outline of her teeth through her skin . . . it definitely gave me a pretty vivid mental picture. I have never had an eating disorder, but have always had "issues" with food and my body image, so I consider myself to be kind of teetering on the edge of experiences like these . . . books like these definitely make me think twice. It's difficult to imagine why someone would willingly starve themselves, but Marya shares her brutal insight and honesty in a truly effective manner. This book should be mandatory for junior high and high school students . . . maybe then everyone would see the truth about this terrible disease directly from a survivor. Maybe then young girls would pay less attention to models on t.v. and in magazines and pay more attention to being happy with themselves.
Rating: 
Summary: Mayra's "Wasted" View
Review: I absolutely loved this book. Read it over and over, actually I'm sure 5x plus, its a great look into how one's life is with an eating disorder. Unfortunately, I dealt with anorexia for 5 years, loved the book because of the great 'tips' she offered to give. I believe that this book is for someone who has a friend or sister or daughter or son, dealing with and eating disorder. I highly DO NOT recommend it to a person dealing with the same issue. This book is very triggering, encouraging, and comparable in the wrong way. I believe this book does not help someone recover or help them on or to the road of recovery, it helps one destroy themselves more. It helps someone with and eating disorder kill themselves with new and different 'tips' 'tricks' and what not. The girls I know who have read this book all have read it for the same reason and I did. It helps you learn more eating disorder behaviors. For someone to know a true way of the life inside an eating disorder, this would be the book. Its very descriptive, very real, very picturing and true. Take cation when reading though, I still recommend that to everyone who reads.
Rating: 
Summary: Been there, still there...
Review: It never ceases to amaze me how totally and completely self-absorbed anorexics and bulimics are. Marya Hornbacher is no exception and "Wasted" is her own personal tribute to how dramatic and special and sick she was and still is. As a former bulimic, I was hoping to read an honest and insightful account of eating disorders, from the perspective of someone who has "been there, done that" and is now moving forward in recovery. Instead, Hornbacher is obviously still wallowing in her ED... "been there, still there". Hornbacher, in all her self-induced drama, still has not "gotten" recovery. She's still wrapped up in her own little epic, which doesn't include anyone but herself and her thoughts and her body. It's such a shame that she's missing out on all of the wonderful EXTERNAL things real life has to offer. I hope the readers of this book (especially the young women dabbling in ED behavior) can recognize that Hornbacher is NOT a model of what recovery looks like.
Rating: 
Summary: The author looks deeper
Review: I don't think this book can be called simply an account of having an eating disorder. Its not all about wanting to be thin, or wanting the perfect body. It's really about not wanting to be at all. Marya finds, when finally she in a mental home, that she hates herself. She felt she had to be perfect: the perfect daughter, the perfect student, the perfect beauty. When she realized that this could never happen, that this pipe dream of perfection is an abstraction, she wanted to be nothing, invisible, as opposed to having to live life flawed. She tried to become nothing through many means, not just through starvation, but through drugs, promiscuous sex, self-mutilation. The appeal of her story is the bare-nakedness with which she delivers. There are no excuses made or blame placed, she simply tells what happened to her, and looks for a parallel in behavior with others. There is no attempt to tack on a positive ending about recovery that isn't there. She doesn't harp on a cliched message to give the book depth. But in the end, you can see that she battled a variety of problems in her mind. I can't think of this book in just one fashion. I can't think of it as just a story about a severely anorexic girl. The story within is such a multi-dimensional one that embodies a variety of problems, with the theme of self-hatred running throughout.
Rating:
Summary: A No-Holds-Barred Look at Anorexia
Review: This book is incredible - the author hides nothing in her struggle with anorexia, which began when she was quite young. As a non-anorexic, one thing which astonished me is how the author remembered, in excruciating detail, what she ate at various meals, sometimes years before. (I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast this morning!) The fixation on eating, or on not eating, is truly extreme. The story is a real page-turner: the author's struggle is one she almost lost. Another point in the book which was interesting, although it is a minor issue, is the author's dealings with men - she describes a lot of anonymous, casual sex, and somehow I linked this with her disease, although she doesn't really link the two.The only criticism I have is how did the author overcome her disease? The author gives her treatment very short shrift - I would like to see another book discussing this issue. But, even so, if you suffer from this disease or, like me, are curious about it, this is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: An indepth view of E.D
Review: This book was definetly a page turner. As an anorexic, I found this book to be the best in telling a person what goes in someone's head with this disease. I related to a lot of what Marya so thoughtfully shared with the rest of the world.
Rating:
Summary: An indepth view...
Review: My therapist recommended this book to me. I opened it thinking it was just another book telling you what eating disorders are. Wrong. This book was a page turner. I am an anoretic and Marya's thinking of why she was doing this to herself answered a lot of my questions. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to shed a little light of what goes on an anorexic or bulimic mind.
Rating:
Summary: truthful
Review: It was one of the most honest books I have ever read on eating disorders. I would recommend this to anyone who has or is affected by someone with an eating disorder.
Rating:
Summary: Touching, Heartbreaking, Honest
Review: This book made me cry time and again. I couldn't put it down. I realized the truly psychological aspects of eating disorders. I don't have an eating disorder, but I don't think that it could serve as a replacement for therapy for a person that did have one. It is a wonderful book, but keep in mind that it is not a cure. If you do have an eating disorder, get help from a professional.
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