As many other reviewers said, the photography is this book is beautiful (although haunting might be a better word). Lauren Greenfield seems to have developed enough of a camaraderie with the girls and women in Renfrew to take fairly candid shots.

Of course, the book also reads like a warning against (and simultaneously propaganda for) Renfrew. You'll (be forced to)eat while not exerting yourself. You might pick up hints and tricks from mother women at the center. You may create some of your first More...

This book makes me so mad.

Renfrew is a horrible treatment center. I can't
even believe the people running that place are
professionals. Those poor girls that go there.
You can't blame them for getting worse after
they leave. They go their for help and don't get
it, and then become more hopeless. It is so sad there
are places out their like this- SO many of them!

I feel so blessed and fortunate to have gotten the
treatment I got- at one of the best treatment centers
in the world.

The professionals in More...

Lauren Greenfield is a wonderful photographer. She has a great clarity to her work, and a directness that I really like to look at. (At which I really like to look). I can't really judge that well because I've never had an eating disorder (just usual girl-body-image stuff), but I thought Thin (the documentary) was crazy compelling and and an honest look at the toughness of treating the illness.

The book is also crazy compelling. It would be good stand-alone, and it adds more to the stories than t More...

I saw the HBO documentary Thin a few weeks ago, I believe, and I waited on checking on this book because it was thick and heavy and I walk to and from the library most days. I'm a weakling... After watching the documentary, the urge to check out this book heightened, especially after I saw the some photographs/images from the website and wished they were explored more in the documentary.

Wow, this collection of stories from all sorts of different backgrounds, besides the cast of the 4 main female More...

Really powerful and devastating book that explores Eating Disorders and the girls suffering from them. It follows four main girls, but also tells the stories of many, many other women being treated at Renfrew, an inpatient treatment centre for people with eating disorders. It's a tough book that doesn't gloss over any of the horrors of suffering from an eating disorder, but it has heart and really explains the mindset of someone suffering from an ED. The photographs were amazing and the personal More...

I think that this book would really appeal to teenage girls, seeing as anorexia and body image are such common problems with this age group. The pictures are gripping and the way in which the story is told (through first person accounts of anorexic girls and their journal entries) is not only believable but also very powerful. The book is a quick read (I read it all in one evening) and I think it would also appeal to a reluctant reader; the images definitely help to break up the text.


The book ad More...

*Dying to be thin*

Based on the Lauren Greenfield's HBO documentary of the same name, Thin graphically presents the stories of several women receiving residential treatment for eating disorders at the Renfrew Center in Coconut Creek, Florida. The intense emotionality of these stories is captured best by eating disorder specialist Dr. Michael Strober who describes them as "gripping, poignant, bewildering, heart wrenching, incomprehensible, inspiring, sickening, disturbing, repellent, touching, inf More...

So I'm going to be reviewing the movie and book sort of together, because they are pretty much the same thing. The documentary took four of the girls from the book and followed them around during their treatments and such in Renfrew. I'm not sure how I feel about Renfrew. I mean it seems okay at times, but having never been to a facility like that, I don't really have much to compare it to. The therapist Adam seemed like the best person in that whole place. He was one of the few who seemed to re More...

I saw a bit of the documentary and I saw the exhibit when I went to Smith College for a tour. My friends and I were not really interested in the paintings but instead the exhibit caught our attention. When I got home I immediately searched for the book...and found a very good price at amazon.com.

The stories told in "Thin" are absolutely raw. They were told by real people going through the challenges that anoreixa and bulimia developed for them. Seeing the images that Lauren took really helped t More...

The relationship between food, emotions, and women's bodies, my goodness. I didn't intend to be in the library for more than fifteen minutes but the cover of this book grabbed my attention and, soon enough, I was planted at a desk completely engrossed in the photos and stories. Some of the photos are quite disturbing but the nature of how anorexia and bulimia take control of one's mind and body is such a complicated and widespread matter that it merits such honest documentation. To make the expe More...

this is the companion book to the HBO documentary with the same title. having just watched the doc again, i have to say, i like the book so much more. while it is a sort of "supplement" you get to see more into the lives of the girls than i felt you did in the film. there are excerpts from journals, lots of photos, and way more history and background to shelly, polly and britney, especially. (also alicia.) with the fact that polly passed away late last year, this book takes an even more poignant More...

Greenfield approaches a taboo subject with such genuine concern and skill that it will break your heart. The girls, and so many like them, are plagued with endless self awareness, anxiety, and obsession.

Before reading this book, it was difficult for me to imagine a life where my body and my image were so much of what saturated my daily thoughts. Coming from a home where hobbies, skills, and personal interests were what was deeply valued, I can better appreciate my good fortune when considering More...

I don't agree with Renfrew's treatment. Wth would you force someone with an eating disorder to eat junk food? These girls and women need to learn proper ways of eating. And I understand why they don't allow exercise, but because they aren't allowed they get the fat belly and that isn't
Healthy. Eveything in moderation and it isn't being taught at renfrew. The stories of the girls are similar in many ways. I hope they all succeed in bettering their lives.

I was awfully intrigued, and somewhat excited about this book when I first picked it up. When I started reading THIN, my excitement disappeared and I was disturbed by each story. Some of these girls got better, some of them were readmitted to the clinic, and a few died. I certainly recommend this book to those curious about the subject and want to gain deeper insight to how these girls think. I also recommend watching the documentary, too.

This book, and the associated tv documentary, provide a shockingly real insight into life inside of an ED treatment center. I recommend it to anyone who has been through, or has a loved one going through ED treatment.

I remained very close friends with Polly for the years after the documentary was filmed, leading up to her untimely death in 2008. Watching and reading about her strength and courage with her ED battle is an inspiration.

Recommended for those who are interested in learning about eating disorders. This book does a good job of showing how EDs are really not about food at all, but about so many deeper psychological issues. The first-person blurbs are excellent samples of the distorted thinking that is usually present in EDs. Not recommended for those with an active ED, as the photos and statements could easily be triggering.

This is a 2008 ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant YA Readers. I absolutely loved this book. It is a raw, honest look into what it's like to live with an eating disorder. I would highly recommend it to both high school boys and girls, especially those with image problems (hey, don't they all have image problems?). Even if the student isn't struggling with the same problems the women in the book are, it's easy to relate with the idea of losing control, feeling like less of a person based on one's appear More...

I kept meaning to look at this book, but lets face it, eating disorders aren't exactly the kind fo think you want to read about just for kicks.

But wow. This is really well done. Its personal without seeming exploitive and scaring without losing hope.

I was shocked at how many of the girl's relapsed testifying to strangle hold of the disease.

Disturbing portrait of patients at Renfrew, a residential treatment center for women with eating disorders. Includes commentary from several experts in the field as well as personal first hand accounts of patients' experiences at the center. Unfortunately, few of these women seemed motivated to change and many suffered multiple relapses.

I really appreciated this book and accompanying documentary. It was so neat to get it from the perspective of a photographer and lay-person, rather than an "expert" or even "fellow-struggler" of the women in treatment. This book came from a novel point of view - no pun intended (anything to avoid the word "fresh") - and was almost artistic in its origin. Some of the best in the contribution to eating disorder literature that I have ever come across. Just enough back story to fulfill one's need f More...

Purging, bingeing, laxatives, exercise, starvation: they're all just temporary ways to drop a few pounds... right? Wrong. Greenfield's gorgeous, unsettling, raw photo-documentary of the Renfrew Center (which treats eating disorders) follows that admittance and treatment of four patients. The gritty realism of these women's stories are documented in their own words, and the conditions of their bodies are exposed by Greenfield's heartbreaking photography.

The photography is absolutely amazing, and More...

Fantastic book. You can feel the effort and honesty that was put into this work as you go through each and every page. I wish more people were aware of how serious and heartbreaking an eating disorder can be, instead of glamourizing them and acting like they're not something a person has to overcome. Lauren and her team did a great job documenting the lives of these women, and I applaud their courage to share their stories.

The most triggering book I have ever read. I was up intil 4 in the morning last night reading and re-reading this book, flipping through the pages looking at the pictures, and planning how I was going to be just like these girls. Sick, isn't it?
I was frightened a bit by some of the older women. They seemed so pathetic. That could be my future, I guess, but I was less afraid of such a grim future than I was inspired by these beautiful, thin girls.
I really want to see the film now. If the book wa More...

there is such beautiful photography in this book. the one picture that always strikes me is of the girl who's on the phone with her boyfriend, crying, because she's afraid she'll be too fat to love anymore when she gets out of treatment.

This book goes along with Lauren Greenfield's award winning documentary of the same name. While the documentary primarily follows four women in their treatment at the Renfrew Center in Florida, the book goes into more details about other patients there. Along with portraits, there are diary entries and interviews with other women in the facility. Their stories are heartbreaking but they are real. Lauren Greenfield gives a rare look into an eating disorders clinic and the patients invite us into More...

This is a heartwrenching companion to an equally beautiful movie, a documentary about the same people and inclusing some overlapping content. The pictures of the women and their journals add an element. It's really good.

This book is very interesting (although it makes for a slightly awkward coffee table book). Its pretty much everything you'd expect from the description and is only a little less captivating then the HBO program about it.

An amazing "coffee table book" based on the wonderful documentary of the same name. It's triggering and the pictures can be upsetting, but the accounts are riveting and informative.

I can't say I liked this book, but it was still very necessary. Read it once, then donated it, hoping it can help someone else.

The photographs, captions, and diary snapshots were the most vivid, emotive portions of this book. I am intrigued to see the HBO documentary from which this work originated, especially since it seems like a much more visual telling than a verbal one. The clinical analyses took a much too "removed" view of the entire issue, which really alienated me from the personal stories that were being told on the rest of the pages. I understand Greenfield's purpose for including those more global outlooks, More...