Name: How to Disappear Completely
ISBN: 9781468306682

Kelsey Osgood

Traces the author's lifetime struggles with anorexia, describing how in early adolescence she obsessively read cautionary articles and memoirs to learn the strategies of anorexic patients, describing her lengthy hospitalizations and the competitive, dysfunctional world of eating-disorder inpatient facilities. 20,000 first printing.

On Modern Anorexia

How to Disappear Completely

Amanda K

Naomi

i think the first thing that disconcerted me when reading this was how white kelsey comes across in this, and it's often not self aware despite her attempts of acknowledging her WASPness. there is also this superiority of her tone over previous writers who have documented their struggles with eating disorders as if they could have had the insight that she has having seen the aftermath of books like  wasted . ironically it almost fails in that regard— the details given to these proana websites , the list of symptoms, the circling back to the amount of her hospital stays. 
kelsey is not a psychologist or an eating disorder specialist by any stretch of it and it shows in her analysis of how anorexia comes to be amongst its most vulnerable population. in addition to that there is so much contempt for the characters that are not like her (young and skinny enough) that its almost ironic that this is supposed to be a "better" version of other books about anorexia.
if its supposed to be a memoir it doesn't provide an actual insight into kelsey, and in the pursuit to be different we are left with a book that doesn't give a narrative that hasnt been given before. 
the hornbacher bashing also left a bad taste in my mouth, whole lotta projection going on

How to Disappear Completely On Modern Anorexia

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