Helpful Score: 5
A fantastic and incredibly honest memoir of what a severe, serious eating disorder can really do to your body and mind. Hornbacher's honesty is impressive, and she gives excellent insight into the what anorexia and bulimia really are-- great for family members and professionals to read. Caution-- this book may be quite triggering if you yourself are recovering from an ED.
Helpful Score: 5
Helped me to understand the inner life of someone struggling with anorexia and bulimia. Author is incredibly articulate, intelligent and great writer... and still struggling with the disease.
Kimberly D. (lovemakesyoureal) reviewed Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia on + 19 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
"Wasted" is dark and intense. Her struggle is real, and effectively written. Overall, this is a great read, but don't expect a feel-good book.
Helpful Score: 2
This is a very true story, I found it hard to read after knowing someone who suffered from anorexia.The pain and misunderstandings about the diease are very sad.
Helpful Score: 2
A powerful story of a young girl who suffers from both anorexia and bulimia. She traveled to the darker side of reality and found her way back on her own terms.
Helpful Score: 2
This is such a powerful read. It's a must for anyone who has suffered from an eating disorder or knows someone that has. Very intense, raw emotion.
I found this to be a great read. The author is very honest and brave. Helped me better understand what goes through the mind of one with an eating disorder.
Helpful Score: 1
One of my favorite books. Intense, captivating, and beautifully written account of the author's life with eating disorders and drug addictions. I agree that this isn't a feel-good book, but it's excellent. I'm keeping my copy, but you should definitely read this.
As someone who has gone through a similar ordeal, I can say she speaks the truth. This book is not only dark but has its time of wit too. I have read and reread this book several times, and have loved it every time. I recommend this for everyone, but NOT those currently suffering as this can be very triggering. I made that mistake and it is not to be taken lightly.
Amazing and disturbing... Very well-written. I couldn't put it down.
This is an engaging, intelligent, intense, and painfully honest look at one woman's experiences with an eating disorder. Marya Hornbacher's unflinching look at her own life and psyche manages to make the reader both understand the mind of someone with ED (while never condoning it) and also feel a great deal of empathy (without whining). This is a very powerful book.
A word of warning: This book can also be very triggering. If you have any kind of issues with food/weight or any history of disordered eating, you should carefully consider whether or not you're able to handle this book. I wasn't far enough along in my recovery when I first read this and it triggered me 6 ways from Sunday!
A word of warning: This book can also be very triggering. If you have any kind of issues with food/weight or any history of disordered eating, you should carefully consider whether or not you're able to handle this book. I wasn't far enough along in my recovery when I first read this and it triggered me 6 ways from Sunday!
Gabriella P. (gabbygirl83) reviewed Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia on + 42 more book reviews
Excellent, written with sincere honesty and truth. I enjoyed this book far and beyond any other book in dealing with a personal account of a first hand eating disorder. This book is hard to put down.
Not as gripping as I thought it would be...
At first, Wasted sucked me in and I enjoyed it, but as the book went on the story started to seem repetitive and boring. I kept expecting this to be it, The Climax of the story, but then wait.....she gets sicker still! This kept repeating until I thought maybe her getting well would wrap everything up, but that doesn't happen either. Now, I consider myself a compassionate person and I know this sounds harsh, I think I feel this way because to me at least, the author's tone had a touch of arrogance, an "I'm better than you" tinge to it, and this made me feel not as bad for her and her poor life decisions as I usually would. The author herself admits near the end of the book, that it all just got a bit boring. Well, I agree with her. Her incessant whining and need to be the sickest person in the room started to sound like a 5-year old throwing a tantrum. Luckily, this was only the last 1/3 of the book or so, which is why it still received 3 stars from me.
Eloquently written, and amazingly insightful to someone suffering from an eating disorder. She looks at the problem from multiple angles, and relates her own experience in a way that could be helpful to other sufferers. This book proves that her long and tiresome struggle with these two eating disorders was not in vain.
This is a first account telling of author Marya Hornbacher's life as she experienced both anorexia, bulimia and substance abuse. Her writing is very descriptive and kept me interested-I did not want to put the book down. I think it might be dangerous for a recovering ana-mia person to read as it can be a trigger but for those who would like to know the insides of the mind of one who has gone through this, it is an excellent choice.
An in-depth look at a woman's young eating-disordered life, full of well-researched information and presented with a strong voice.
I don't like to use the word "harrowing" lightly, but I think it's appropriate for this memoir of anorexia and bulimia. It's definitely not a pleasant story, but Hornbacher sheds light on the darker aspects of an already misunderstood disorder. Her writing is beautiful, and the bravery she exhibits in telling her story is impressive. I highly recommend it to anyone, eating disordered or not.
Incredibly interesting. An amazing writer who allows you to see every aspect of her illness. I also like her book "Madness"
I thought this was a wonderfully written, very raw and honest account of a woman's life-long struggle with anorexia and bulimia. As someone who has never suffered from these illnesses, I thought that it did a great job of making me understand what's going on in someone's head who is bulimic or anorexic. A lot of what I learned in this book was very surprising. I think it's a great read for anyone who knows someone who is suffering or has suffered from anorexia or bulimia because it puts you right in her head.
A horrific disease brought to light. What female hasn't tried to loose weight? How weight can become such an obsession and how we as parents need to teach our children good eating habits away from dieting.
Laurie E. (dogzkidznotime) - , reviewed Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia on + 5 more book reviews
every college bound girl should read this...
One of the saddest, yet most memorable, books I've ever read. I'd recommend every young woman that's ever thought about her weight read this memoir - whether you've suffered an eating disorder or not. Very well written.
Bridget O. (sixteendays) -
This was an incredibly difficult book to read.
On the surface, that seems obvious. Reading the experience of a woman living with bulima, anorexia, and a plethora of other mental health issues, is going to be a difficult read. But that's not what I mean.
Hornbacher wrote this memior at age 23. She ends the book (I did not read the modern reprint with her "updated" ending) rather solemnly, admitting that she is not cured, there is no answer, and essentially she cannot give an ending. She wrote this only 4 years after her near-death experience, and only 3 years after her suicide attempt. This memoir was written by someone still deeply in the grip of the things that had led her to that point in her life.
So the uncomfortableness comes from the outsiders perspective. She insists, over and again, that she had a "normal", "good" childhood and that her eating disorder just appeared out of the blue from no where.
She then goes on to detail a childhood filled with emotional trauma, surrounded by family members with mental health and food issues of their own, and as the reader we find ourselves frustratingly yelling, "it's there! it's all there! I can see it happening to you as you're writing it but you cannot see it!" Near the end of the book she still refers to her family has relatively normal, just "messy". It feels like a kick in the gut.
I have not read Hornbacher's other books. I feel almost honor-bound to do so now, to not always have my memory of this author entrenched in her view of herself at 23-years-old. None of us deserve that.
On the surface, that seems obvious. Reading the experience of a woman living with bulima, anorexia, and a plethora of other mental health issues, is going to be a difficult read. But that's not what I mean.
Hornbacher wrote this memior at age 23. She ends the book (I did not read the modern reprint with her "updated" ending) rather solemnly, admitting that she is not cured, there is no answer, and essentially she cannot give an ending. She wrote this only 4 years after her near-death experience, and only 3 years after her suicide attempt. This memoir was written by someone still deeply in the grip of the things that had led her to that point in her life.
So the uncomfortableness comes from the outsiders perspective. She insists, over and again, that she had a "normal", "good" childhood and that her eating disorder just appeared out of the blue from no where.
She then goes on to detail a childhood filled with emotional trauma, surrounded by family members with mental health and food issues of their own, and as the reader we find ourselves frustratingly yelling, "it's there! it's all there! I can see it happening to you as you're writing it but you cannot see it!" Near the end of the book she still refers to her family has relatively normal, just "messy". It feels like a kick in the gut.
I have not read Hornbacher's other books. I feel almost honor-bound to do so now, to not always have my memory of this author entrenched in her view of herself at 23-years-old. None of us deserve that.
Didn't keep my attention.
I hate getting a book and not finishing it but this book was so awful that I did just that! Incredibly pretentious, whiny and just plain weird ... I feel like someone edited all the words because Hornbacher's true personality barely showed through. Quotes all over the place like it was an academic paper. Her mother did not breast feed her as a child because she felt like she was being devoured??? What the hell is that even supposed to mean? My sister was home for Thanksgiving so I read her the funny/tragic disaster out loud for a while. Now that she has left, the book is going right out to someone else. Yuck.
The most complete book on eating disorders written thus far.
Kristin M. (MissKristin66) - , reviewed Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia on + 80 more book reviews
A little worn but not excessively so.
