Dying to be Thin

by Linda A. Carson, Barbara Crook (Introduction)

Dying to be Thin is a witty and inspirational look behind locked doors into the secret life of a young teenager battling with the eating disorder bulimia. Written from the author's own personal experience, the play unfolds to tell the poignant story of Amanda, as she sets out to have her "Last Ever in Her Whole Life Binge."

Genres: Plays

48 pages, Paperback

First published January 16, 1998

Reviews

[Diabolica · Rating 4 out of 5]

The progression of her character and actions over the span of a monologue was interesting. I felt like I was reading about the changes in thought I had over the last seven years boiled down in forty pages.

[Liralen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This narrow volume follows a young woman through her realisation that she cannot hang on to her bulimia forever, and that indulging in 'one last binge' before going cold turkey won't do the trick. It must be a beast of a play to perform, as it's essentially a twenty-page monologue.

This is from 1998, and it's very similar in content and perspective to a lot of eating-disorder fiction of the same era. I'm glad to have read it, but I suspect that a contemporary play would take a rather different tack.

[Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good play about eating disorders. It is in a form of a monologue, which I like. It’s very short but it’s so descriptive about the issues of eating disorders. It had this undertone of dark humour within its very sentences, the cynical character sarcastically describing her issues.

[Sandra Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good book and it had a lot of info on eating disorder. I learned how to manage my eating better but also how to cut back to almost nothing in any one day. Just have to be careful not to follow in the girls steps in the future.