Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (P.S.)

Author - Marya Hornbacher ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Harper Perennial was reviewed on 10-Dec-2008.

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1) Paperback Book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (P.S.) by Harper Perennial. honest, blunt, and insightful. As others have pointed out, it may not aid in the recovery of an eating disorder. However, I do not believe that it romanticizes eating disorders in such a way that it makes them seem more glamorous than they really are. I believe that any romantic thoughts expressed in the book are thoughts that the author, as well as other eating disordered people, have experienced, however distorted they may be. In other words, while for most people it won´t inspire recovery, it will not prevent it, because they are most probably already familiar with the feelings that she expresses.
I believe that this book will be most valuable to the person trying to understand the thought process behind eating disorders, more specifically family and friends of those who suffer from them. It is extremely candid and expressive, the literary style very reflective of the overall experience of having an eating disorder. If nothing else, since there are so many skeptics of this book´s ability to aid in any sort of recovery process, this book should be respected as an articulate memoir and overall well-written piece of literature.

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2) Paperback Book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (P.S.) by Harper Perennial. Never one to starve myself to bend the needle on the scale, I´ve always been curious about the mentality of women who do feel the need for food deprivation in order to achieve the body they think they should have. I even knew a potential bulimic in high school and never understood how she could make herself throw up in order to stay skinny, not to mention feeling appalled by the concept. I´m able to say now after reading this memoir that the notion of eating disorders has been extensively elucidated for me while increasing my dismayed response to such behavior.

Nominated in 1998 for the Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction, "Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia" is at times shocking, difficult to digest (in more ways than one, pardon the pun) and yet strangely edifying, allowing the reader a peek inside the driving forces behind women with eating disorders. Author Marya Hornbacher cracks the door wide open on a madness few understand, a neurosis that rationalizes time and again the abnormal act of starvation.

"Wasted" follows Hornbacher´s early childhood in California all the way to her college years in Minnesota and Washington D.C., chronicling in painstaking detail her burgeoning eating disorder. A bulimic at only nine years old, Marya perpetuated the vicious cycle of bingeing and purging for seven years, escalating to anorexia at 15 when she began attending Interlochen, a prestigious boarding school. Her poor self-image and intense scrutiny of her body and how others perceived it eventually led to drug addiction (uppers, downers, cocaine), alcohol abuse and promiscuity beginning at 13. Hospitalized a whopping five times in her youth, Marya´s weight bottomed out at a precarious 52 lbs by the time she was 19, her doctors giving her parents the morbid time frame of one week in which to settle her affairs. She would eventually be classified as EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) due to her disordered eating patterns that couldn´t be definitively categorized and even today still struggles with food/weight issues.

Hornbacher´s scrupulous narrative allows her reader to peer deep into the psychological dysfunction of anoretics and bulimics, illustrating that eating disorders are a means of managing the self when all else is unmanageable, of feeling some sort of power over one´s destiny and of conquering what is perceived to be an opposing force (such as hunger). Often citing quality of life, familial relationships and chemical imbalances as root causes, Hornbacher also explains that society´s fixation on the perfect body and the normal angst of pre-pubescence as well as adolescence is a contributing factor to the feeling of one´s life spiraling out of control, the impulse to adopt anorexic or bulimic behavior seen as a veritable steering wheel on the treacherous highway of life. Particularly haunting is the following passage that unerringly explains the aberrance of eating disorders:

"I had a clear haunting knowledge that my eating disorder was cruelty. We forget this. We think of 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 is bespeaks a profound level of anger toward and fear of the self." (pg. 123)

Time and I again I muttered aloud in disbelief and shock at Marya´s candid confessions of excessive exercising, the relentless cycle of bingeing and purging and/or fasting, downing whole bottles of syrup of ipecac as well as laxative abuse and later on adopting self-mutilation as a coping mechanism. Hornbacher is so brutally truthful about her drug and alcohol use and numerous sexual encounters that her memoir was banned from several public school systems across the country as a result. Vacillating between clinical and personal, the book contains numerous annotations from medical professionals and/or medical texts in between horror stories of vomiting in alleys or suitcases, peculiar eating habits (carrot sticks and mustard) and the sometimes strange but mostly painful physical side effects of her disorder (growing lanugo, migraines, severe muscle aches, insomnia, amenorrhea, esophagitis, fainting/black outs, constantly feeling cold, craving salt, etc.).

Bottom line: If you´re curious about someone who wages a constant war with their own body, if you yourself have trouble reconciling your own weight (though deemed normal) or your physically healthy daughter(s) tells you she just NEEDS to go on a diet, crack open "Wasted" and take it from someone who knows firsthand how hard it is - as well as how important it is - to feel comfortable in your own skin.
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3) Paperback Book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (P.S.) by Harper Perennial. I liked this book a lot and not ´cause I related to Marya. I didn´t. Not in the beginning, anyway. In fact, I don´t even recall my life very much at 7 years old; I couldn´t really picture someone that young having and ED. I´m not implying she might have been dishonest, but it just made me realize that I wasn´t so self-aware at that age, of my own image.

The book is catchy. It´s the kind of book where you want to know what happens next. It´s the kind of book you want to know how it ends. Though, it *could* be triggering -- as a matter of fact, especially when she says, at the end, that she relapsed following the narration of the events. However, it´s honest. An ED is not something that you can shake off by going to the doctor and popping in some pills or being hospitalized for a period of time. It´s a life-long battle. And you must fight it every day, within yourself.¤

4) Paperback Book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (P.S.) by Harper Perennial. This book is the definition of disturbing....but it may bring "skinny" into a better perspective for you. The media should read this & then re-evaluate what kind of skinny is appropriate for women...¤

5) Paperback Book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (P.S.) by Harper Perennial. this book is beautifully written. marya hornbacher is a phenomenal writer, and i have read this book at least 5 times over, never growing tired of her vivid descriptions of an uphill battle with an eating disorder. i´ve read all 3 of hornbacher´s books (all of which i finished in approximately 3-4 days, because i could NOT put them down), and truly look forward to any further books/memoirs she has in the works, as i know they will be equally brilliant.
this book is life changing...it´s heart breaking...it´s beautiful...it´s scarring...it´s amazing.¤

6) Paperback Book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (P.S.) by Harper Perennial.

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 romance of wasting away to rest forever. A vivid, honest, and emotionally wrenching memoir, Wasted is the story of one woman´s travels to reality´s darker side -- and her decision to find her way back on her own terms.

7) Paperback Book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (P.S.) by Harper Perennial. "I fell for the great American dream, female version, hook, line, and sinker," Marya Hornbacher writes. "I, as many young women do, honest-to-God believed that once I Just Lost a Few Pounds, suddenly I would be a New You, I would have Ken-doll men chasing my thin legs down with bouquets of flowers on the street, I would become rich and famous and glamorous and lose my freckles and become blond and five foot ten." Hornbacher describes in shocking detail her lifelong quest to starve herself to death, to force her short, athletic body to fade away. She remembers telling a friend, at age 4, that she was on a diet. Her bizarre tale includes not only the usual puking and starving, but also being confined to mental hospitals and growing fur (a phenomenon called lanugo, which nature imposes to keep a body from freezing to death during periods of famine).¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 7-Jan-2009, 00608587969780060858797, 960-000-570-580-090-520-580-8

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