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Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
Why would a talented young woman enter into a torrid affair with hunger, drugs, sex, and death? Through five lengthy hospital stays, endless therapy, and the loss of family, friends, jobs, and all sense of what it means to be "normal," Marya Hornbacher lovingly embraced her anorexia and bulimia -- until a particularly horrifying bout with the disease in college put the rom...more
Paperback, 320 pages
Published
January 31st 2006
by Harper Perennial
(first published December 29th 1997)
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eta: i think it's important to note that this book was first published in 1998 - when things like tumblr did not exist. for a generation that learned to get all information from books, this book was the key to tricks and tips for anorexia. not that you couldn't figure them out for yourself, but if you were on the edge or something, this gave you ways. i don't actually say that this book should be censored, i say i wish there was a way to put warnings on it. i say i think it's an important book f...more
It would be tacky to put this on my "food" shelf, wouldn't it? But I did get so hungry while reading it that I got up and made spaghetti carbonara. It was delicious.
So this is a memoir of the author's ten-year struggle with bulimia and anorexia. I found it different from other works I've read on eating disorders, in that the author doesn't go for easy explanations of why she almost killed herself. She wasn't trying to be pretty or perfect or to control her world, at least not solely. She was rea...more
So this is a memoir of the author's ten-year struggle with bulimia and anorexia. I found it different from other works I've read on eating disorders, in that the author doesn't go for easy explanations of why she almost killed herself. She wasn't trying to be pretty or perfect or to control her world, at least not solely. She was rea...more
Nov 29, 2010
Esmeralda Rupp-Spangle
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Mature readers
Shelves:
auto-biography
Possibly the finest auto-biography I have ever read. People who have suffered from EDs will complain that this book is packed full of triggers, but so is America's Next Top Model, and I can't say anything about the quality of THAT writing.
This book is a genuine, gripping story of a youth literally thrown away in favor of madness.
For anyone who has not suffered from some incarnation of disordered eating, it will seem surreal, and at times, utterly unbelievable.
The book is effortlessly fluid. T...more
This book is a genuine, gripping story of a youth literally thrown away in favor of madness.
For anyone who has not suffered from some incarnation of disordered eating, it will seem surreal, and at times, utterly unbelievable.
The book is effortlessly fluid. T...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I'm ambivalent about this book. Certainly, at times, she pulled no punches...yet at other times, still a bit under the sway of her disorder, she seemed to be bragging about her "successes" in the extremes of her eating disorder. She wasn't really healthy yet, and that came through in ways she probably never intended. In many ways, it helped me understand how eating disorders work. In other ways (again, I'm sure unintentional on the author's part), I began to understand how eating disorders and p...more
Although I can see why so many like this book, I found it to be dangerous. As an anorexic I found the book great because it had tips in it. This is dangerous though also can be good to read for people trying to live with an anorexic or people who don't have this disease.
Definatly not a book for someone in the throes of an ED to read.
Definatly not a book for someone in the throes of an ED to read.
Anorexia: mancanza di appetito. Una malattia che comporta una fame cronica, assordante, chiamata mancanza di appetito. Sembra una presa in giro.
Sprecata, tutto sta già nel titolo, che comunque é un giudizio che solo la Hornbacher ha il diritto di dare alla propria, fin qui, breve vita.
Rispetto al suo, posteriore, "Una vita bipolare", questa sua testimonianza mostra tutta l'urgenza dello scrivere, del mettere per iscritto quanto avvenuto e quanto compreso rispetto alla propria malattia. A volte r...more
Sprecata, tutto sta già nel titolo, che comunque é un giudizio che solo la Hornbacher ha il diritto di dare alla propria, fin qui, breve vita.
Rispetto al suo, posteriore, "Una vita bipolare", questa sua testimonianza mostra tutta l'urgenza dello scrivere, del mettere per iscritto quanto avvenuto e quanto compreso rispetto alla propria malattia. A volte r...more
I've read this one multiple times as well. Hornbacher was only 23 years old when she wrote this book so there is no sense of her having distanced herself from the disease or its lingering effects on her. This, combined with her talent for writing, gives readers a real sense of the horror of anorexia and bulimia and their power to dominate an individual's life. The author was bulimic as a fourth grader and anorexic at age 15. She was hospitalized several times and institutionalized once. This is...more
Edited to add disclaimer. PLEASE err on the side of extreme caution if you are recovering from ED or were planning to share this book with a young person who may be in a vulnerable position. As someone who has struggled from an ED myself, I can say that this book contains many things that could trigger you. It also contains graphic detail of how to hide food, how to get rid of food, how to trick people, etc.
Basic Summary: Well, I think the title sort of covers it. It's a memoir of the author's...more
Basic Summary: Well, I think the title sort of covers it. It's a memoir of the author's...more
Sep 17, 2010
Ashley
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
people who have no risk of developing an eating disorder
My relationship with this book is love/hate. It kind of reminds me of Prozac Nation in the sense that the first couple chapters about her average middle-class childhood are pretty boring and pointless. She tries to describe every little bad thing that happened to her like she is the only one in the world who ever received less than perfect parenting. However keep reading because unlike Prozac Nation this book actually gets pretty good as time goes on and you get into the shocking rock-bottom det...more
This was such a difficult and painful book to read that it took me well over a month to finish it! Hornbacher in no way tried to sugarcoat her illness or attempt to make the reader feel sorry for her. And I have to say I both appreciated and admired her honest recount of her actions. She goes so far as to acknowledge that she still doesn't have a full grasp of understanding her disorder nor does she leave you with a false sense of well-being in the end. She ends her memoir telling you she was no...more
I gave this book five stars because it's a fantastic book. Beautifully written, honest and rich with insight.
When I read Wasted I was 16/17 and obsessed with my weight. I knew the book had critics who said that it shouldn't be read by people with eating disorders because it was filled with tips and because Hornbacher was equivocal when it came to getting better. I scoffed at them.
I'm older now and if not better, then at least different, and I do have a more troubled view of the book. Is this a...more
When I read Wasted I was 16/17 and obsessed with my weight. I knew the book had critics who said that it shouldn't be read by people with eating disorders because it was filled with tips and because Hornbacher was equivocal when it came to getting better. I scoffed at them.
I'm older now and if not better, then at least different, and I do have a more troubled view of the book. Is this a...more
This book will haunt you, I promise you. I still think about it often, though I read it for the first time I think about 4 years ago. The author chronicles her struggle with anorexia and bulimia (which she calls a combined disorder of "bulimarexia") but her language is captivating. It is also apparent that Marya has done her research; as she narrates her own experience she also includes passages from research on anorexia and bulimia to help show how she came to be afflicted and where she fits in...more
Jul 01, 2008
Becca! Die•apex
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone struggling with an eating disorder.
This book is the firsthand story of a young woman struggling between two eating disorders, which eventually end up consuming her life.
It is all told in the first person, starting at Marya in a young age. This first person retelling of her struggles really gave me a clear insight into her life, and what made her the way she was. Marya told it as it is, and there are a few powerful lines put into that short book, that I will never forget. This book will draw you in, it almost carries a force with...more
It is all told in the first person, starting at Marya in a young age. This first person retelling of her struggles really gave me a clear insight into her life, and what made her the way she was. Marya told it as it is, and there are a few powerful lines put into that short book, that I will never forget. This book will draw you in, it almost carries a force with...more
Mar 02, 2008
Julia
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone who wants to learn about a well-written, first hand account of an eating disorder progression
Recommended to Julia by:
either Amazon or Powells
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I'm still in the process of reading, but here are some quotes I found particularly striking:
"I had a clear, haunting knowledge that my eating disorder was cruelty. We forget this. We think bulimia and anorexia as either a bizarre psychosis, or as a quirky little habit, a phase, or as a thing that women just do. We forget that it is a violent act, that it bespeaks a profound level of anger toward and fear of the self."
"The convenience of having an eating disorder is that you believe, by definitio...more
"I had a clear, haunting knowledge that my eating disorder was cruelty. We forget this. We think bulimia and anorexia as either a bizarre psychosis, or as a quirky little habit, a phase, or as a thing that women just do. We forget that it is a violent act, that it bespeaks a profound level of anger toward and fear of the self."
"The convenience of having an eating disorder is that you believe, by definitio...more
Quite concisely, from my perspective, the dynamism of Marya Hornbacher's writing is extraordinary; the horror and the brutality of her experiences of starvation are articulated to such shattering effect. The command of her prose, the pace of her writing, the ice and fire of her emotions and of her emaciated psychosis, in reflection of her disappearing shell, creates an extremely disturbing narrative, and is one of the most candid (yet, not entirely reliable) memoirs I have ever read. Therefore,...more
God, there is nothing more tedious than a personal narrative that just goes on and on and on. I admire Ms. Hornbacher's willingness to put everything out there, but I find much of what she writes terribly suspect. Reading it from a non-eating-disordered perspective, I had to wonder if people who had been through this picked it up and thought "wow, that's just what I went through" or "hey, what a good idea, I never thought of doing that". Plus I'm not sure if the fact she's not yet over her illne...more
A much more impressive exploration of the causes of eating disorders than any other book on the topic that I've read. She brings in her personal experiences (and is careful to state that her views are about herself and her own experiences and that they may not apply to everyone, or even anyone else) to go beyond theories like young women being influenced by fashion models or trying to delay the onset of puberty. The book is also brutally, brutally honest, especially the last bit in which she cat...more
Ok, I read this a long time ago, but it's still quite possibly the best book on eating disorders -- or even on adolescent mental illness -- that I've ever read. Hornbacher is intelligent, avoids cliches and above all, avoids making herself sound good when she can tell the truth instead. A bracing departure from the "girls can't help starving themselves to death when they see all those models in those glossy magazines" line of thinking about eating disorders -- a line of thinking that treats thos...more
Wasted by Marya Hornbacher is the book that I just finished reading. Its a short memoir which talks about her life and the sruggles she went through grownig up. The theme of this memoir is to respect your self/body and fitting in isnt everything.
In this memoir it explains to the reader how hard it was for her growing up and all the struggles she went through which prevented her from a normal life. She suffered from anorexia and bulmia. It came to a point where when she saw food she would run a...more
In this memoir it explains to the reader how hard it was for her growing up and all the struggles she went through which prevented her from a normal life. She suffered from anorexia and bulmia. It came to a point where when she saw food she would run a...more
Samira Lopes February 4, 2009
My Book Review
I just finished reading, "Wasted" by Marya Hornbacher. It's a memoir that talks about her life story. By reading this book I learned that not everyone values food but food is what keeps the value of life alive.
This book is about a young girl named Marya Hornbacher. As she got older food has always been a problem for her. She wants to eat but doesn't because she's afraid she might gain weight. Her mother was always on a diet but ate well to keep herse...more
My Book Review
I just finished reading, "Wasted" by Marya Hornbacher. It's a memoir that talks about her life story. By reading this book I learned that not everyone values food but food is what keeps the value of life alive.
This book is about a young girl named Marya Hornbacher. As she got older food has always been a problem for her. She wants to eat but doesn't because she's afraid she might gain weight. Her mother was always on a diet but ate well to keep herse...more
I really liked this. She has a great smartass style and just writes frankly about what anorexia and bulimia are like for her and what her life has been like. She started being bulimic at age 9. She acknowledges all the societal pressures on women and how abnormally most "normal" women eat, but also thinks there is something about her that responded to this. Her family is so much like mine, in their "stop acting like a child / why are you trying to act so grown up?" schizophrenia and their micro...more
It was ...okay. Throughout most of the book I felt like I was reading the diary of a 13 year old girl with an eating disorder just begging for some kind of attention, or a "congratualations! you did it!" Which just reminds me of about five girls i knew in high school with the same attitude about their eating disorder.
I also felt that the narrator, never really grew up much (or changed for that matter). By the end I never felt a sense of, "ahh okay she's saved. She's going to be okay..." Instead...more
I also felt that the narrator, never really grew up much (or changed for that matter). By the end I never felt a sense of, "ahh okay she's saved. She's going to be okay..." Instead...more
Wasted makes for rather a tough read (I found myself recoiling from the page as the author recounts some of her experiences with anorexia/bulimia), but it's a worthwhile one. Hornbacher both understands eating disorders from personal experience and is sharp enough to have researched and analyzed why/how/when people develop them. Therefore, it's a memoir with a sociology/psychology twist. My only criticism is that Hornbacher's writing style is, um, artistic -- often distractingly so.
This was a fantastic book. I really loved it. Marya Hornbacher's writing style is brutally honest and real without any self-pity or glorification. Even if you are usually not into memoirs, I would recommend reading this book. It starts off when she is very young, and progresses up until her late teens. Even if you are not in that age range, I would still recommend this book. She did not get it published until her mid-20's, so there is some follow up, which I appreciated. She has a follow up book...more
It's difficult to sum up my thoughts on Wasted, seeing as I'm no literary buff.
There were a lot of things that bothered me about this novel. Hornbacher refers to sufferers of eating disorders as exclusively female, opting for 'she' in her analogies. She presents erroneous references to behaviors such as 'cruising' (she stated it was a precursor to gastric rupture, if that was the case I would have died many times and many years over). The book was full of ponderings and generalisations regarding...more
There were a lot of things that bothered me about this novel. Hornbacher refers to sufferers of eating disorders as exclusively female, opting for 'she' in her analogies. She presents erroneous references to behaviors such as 'cruising' (she stated it was a precursor to gastric rupture, if that was the case I would have died many times and many years over). The book was full of ponderings and generalisations regarding...more
Dec 21, 2012
Michelle
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
autobiography,
psychology
I just wanted to respond to the reviewers who mention this book as a good way to get eating disorder tips. That can be true of basically any book on eating disorders, including medical textbooks, as well as of books on dieting and basically any woman's fashion magazine. Some people will use this book that way, sadly. But if they read it with open eyes they will also see the suffering, depression, madness, and heartache that go with having a severe eating disorder. Hornbacher is am amazing writer...more
The book "Wasted" was truly a remarkable book. It really touched my heart. This book talks about how Marya's life was while dealing with an awful disease. The reason the author wrote this book was to inform the readers of what people have to deal with. another reason I think she wrote this was because she needed to tell people waht was going on in her life and let other people dealing with the same thing know that they are not alone.
The author sends out a lot of messages thought out the book....more
The author sends out a lot of messages thought out the book....more
This is one of the staples of my library. I haven't read it in over a year, but I have so many of the well-crafted turns of phrase memorised from repeated readings. My first copy (accidentally left in Berkeley) was dog-eared, spine-broken, underlined and highlighted. There is a reason that it is known colloquially in eating disordered circles as "The Anorectic's Bible".
It is the tale of one girl's descent into the mirror-covered wonderland of bulimia, then anorexia, then recovery. It doesn't sug...more
It is the tale of one girl's descent into the mirror-covered wonderland of bulimia, then anorexia, then recovery. It doesn't sug...more
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Marya Hornbacher published her first book, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.), in 1998, when she was twenty-three. What started as a crazy idea suggested by a writer friend became the classic book that has been published in fourteen languages, is taught in universities and writing programs all over the world, and has, according to the thousands of letters Mar...more
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“You never come back, not all the way. Always there is an odd distance between you and the people you love and the people you meet, a barrier thin as the glass of a mirror, you never come all the way out of the mirror; you stand, for the rest of your life, with one foot in this world and no one in another, where everything is upside down and backward and sad.”
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444 people liked it
“There is, in fact, an incredible freedom in having nothing left to lose.”
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