Lori Gottlieb

Based on diaries written in 1978, when she was eleven years old, the author offers a chronicle of her battle with anorexia and the pressures from family, peers, and society that led her to starve herself.

A Diary of My Former Self

Stick Figure

Living in Beverly Hills in the 1970's, an elevenyearold girl faced the pressures of her environment to be perfect in weight and presentation, yet when things got out of control, she needed help to return to normal and get a hold of her life once more.

Inês Alegria Ferreira

I read this a while back but only now did I decide to write the review since at the time I kinda let it slide. Probably because this wasn't great and it did not make me feel a lot. Having experienced these issues that are described in this book I know I'm biased to it.

On one hand, I feel like it is good and helpful that these kinds of subjects are more talked about, because at least for me, for the majority of my life I had no idea what an eating disorder actually was. Nevertheless, I don't think books built like this one are a solution. Maybe they even do more harm than good. I feel like once again it portraits the well-known stereotype that eating disorders are always anorexia or bulimia and that for you to have an eating disorder you basically have to have lost a lot of weight, making it extremely dangerous for you to keep on not eating or purging.

Nowadays people are progressively talking more about mental health, but still, I find that most still share the wrong idea of what an eating disorder actually is, and usually are scared to talk about it. It shocks me every time I hear people describing eating disorders as an exclusive appearance thing.

Plus, the usual representation of this issue is white skinny girls that want to look like models and that have a controlling parents. Eating disorders are mental issues. Books like these don't make people understand them any better. The least these books do is give dangerous ideas, which may actually result in unhealthy habits.

More about the story itself. First, the girl in this book is extremely young which is also, in my opinion, a huge stereotype. Then she has these parents that basically give her zero attention. Plus, right from the beginning, you have the classic "you are fat" comments.

But the most frustrating isn't just the typical portrait of the eating disorder. Just because the woman that wrote this book matches the stereotype doesn't mean she shouldn't tell her story. The problem is that [spoiler alert] more towards the girl starts getting better and eventually gets cured with zero explanation.

In a blink of an eye, she just decided to never again participate in the bad coping mechanisms. It kinda made me remember the movie "To the bone", which I hated because of the same exact things. I'm still looking for a book or movie with which I can actually relate and feel represented or at least that it explains the subject well enough for people to actually learn something.

Plus, stop with the overspecified bits about weight and calorie values. Those definitely don't help anyone.

Stick Figure A Diary of My Former Self

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