Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.85260092
EAN: 9780060858797
ISBN: 0060858796
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: February 01, 2006
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: January 31, 2006
Sales Rank: 11563
Studio: Harper Perennial

---

Related Items:

• Madness: A Bipolar Life
• Second Star to the Right
• Diary of an Anorexic Girl
• An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
• The Best Little Girl in the World
• see more

---

Editorial Review:

Product Description:


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.



Amazon.com Review:
"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).




Rating: - candid, well-written
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, ... Read More

---

Rating: - Painfully Personal
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 ... Read More

---

Rating: - Very good book
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, ... Read More

---

Rating: - Gripping!
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...

---

Rating: - i am wasted, but i'm ready...
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 ... Read More

---

Browse for similar items by category:

• Qualifying Textbooks - Custom Stores - Specialty Stores - Books - General AAS
• Biographies & Memoirs - Subjects - Books - Memoirs
• Professionals & Academics - Biographies & Memoirs - Subjects - Books - Medical
• Specific Groups - Biographies & Memoirs - Subjects - Books - Special Needs
• Specific Groups - Biographies & Memoirs - Subjects - Books - Women