Absolutely brilliant book!
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Wasted
Firstly, let me just say that I don't "do" reviews - in fact this is my first one.
I couldn't put this book down. It moved me, made me laugh, surprised and shocked me. But at the same time I sensed that Marya was not writing with to create sensationalism. She was simply saying how it was. In fact in her prologue she goes on to say how difficult this book was to write but felt that if she could save just one person from going through what she went through then it would be worth it. It wasn't a cathartic journey she was under taking, it wasn't any type of therapy - as she says she pays experts a lot of money for that.
Although I am not anorexic or bulimic I could see how very easily it would have been to go down that road. I have always had a weight problem - well in my eyes anyway, when people said I didn't, to me, that was just people being nice.
Having said that when you read about her childhood she didn't stand much of a chance with regards to her self image. She doesn't say that she had a particularly bad childhood and she loves her Mum and step dad to bits. But I loved the way that she didn't lay it all at there door as so many seem to do these days instead of taking ownership. Sure, the way you're brought up can and will affect the person you become but that doesn't mean you have to drag the same baggage around with you until the day you die.
The very sad part of this, and I am not ashamed to say, that it moved me to tears, is the fact that due to the punishment she put her body through via bingeing, starvation, laxatives and other forms of self-harm she will never live to a ripe old age - in short she has hastened her own funeral.
This book is not just for those of us with eating or weight disorders but anyone that loves a good human interest story, even though there is no happy ending (at least not in the normal sense) it gives us all a greater understanding of the human psyche.
This woman (I forget sometimes she is only 22 at the time of writing) is a real writer with a story to tell a supposed to just someone with a story to tell. I would love to read anything this woman wrote.
Overall I wholeheartedly recommend this book.
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A dangerous game
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A graphic account and manual of how to be anorexic or bulmic. This book by Hornbacher is disturbing, not least because of the almost smug way she communicates her story and what one cannot help but think the knowledge that she has been to the dark side and survived. One of the positives is that she does not advocate the there-there approach to anorexia. I have always believed that anorexics know exactly what they are doing in the grip of the illness, but the type of 'fever' the condition demands makes it impossible to pull back and change direction. In many ways this comes across in Hornbacher's work. This book is not suitable for teenages or adolescent women, in fact it is probably not suitable for women under 25.
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A Gripping Real Life Tale
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A stunningly written book by Marya Hornbacher about her struggle with eating disorders throughout her life.
At the age of 23 Marya reflects on her life and the turmoil that anorexia and bulimia put her in. She has clearly done a lot of in-depth research into eating disorders and this helps to add another edge to her account. It is an intellectually written, throughly enjoyable book that gives an insight into having an eating disorder, the thoughts and feelings that accompany them and the journey that she went on.
I would recommend this book to anyone that has ever or is suffering from a eating disorder, and family and friends of them.
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Outstanding
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The first book i've ever read on anorexia and bullimia and quite possibly the best I'm going to ever read.
Not sentimental, but brilliant, sharp, open, honest, tragic and heart rendering. A story told to educate, rip apart the glamour of eating disorders.
I couldn't put this book down, and while I agree with some of the reviewers that this book could be perseived as a trigger, I think it needs to be read, and i'm sure the author needed to write it.
The author shows anorexia and bullimia in all it's horrors and the iron grip which it has on her to this day. To show us and help us understand that each day is a new day, but that we will always carry the scars of our past with us into the future.
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Important and Well-Written Book
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Love it or hate it, Wasted is an exceptional and quite extraordinary book. I read with interest the other reviews here, some of which claim that the book will act as a 'trigger' to those already suffering from eating disorders. Yes, I agree this may possibly be the case.. but this does not make Wasted a bad book. A good book will make you feel something, will make you empathise with the characters, will make you understand something more about yourself or about the human condition. In all of these respects, Wasted is a hugely significant book. This book is not just another book about eating disorders - far from it. It is an intelligent, engaging and well-written account of the search for identity and one person's struggle with a truly horrific and self-destructive addiction. Shocking the subject matter may be, but personally I consider this to be a real modern classic.
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