Marya Hornbacher

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.

A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Wasted

heleen de boever

re-read May 2015. Still beautiful, still terrifying, still bloody insightful, so bursting at the seams and so quiet at the same time. There's something in my chest that is trying to make sense of it all and sometimes, this book helps (and sometimes it makes it worse).

linda

Update: February 1, 2018

About a month after reading this book, I developed an eating disorder. I had always been insecure about my body and my weight, which is part of what brought me to this book in the first place, but reading this book gave me tools I needed for an eating disorder: the mindset and the methodology.

I would just urge everyone to be careful when reading this book. Really take it more as a warning rather than a how to guide. If you are at risk for an eating disorder (dieting, trying to lose weight, counting calories), try to stay away. 

——

Haunting. This is one of the best books I've read. Marya Hornbacher's vivid account of her battle with anorexia and bulimia made me realize that an eating disorder really isn't something I would wish upon anyone, especially myself. This book also brings to light all of the unseen struggles that come with a mental illness.

Judith Junghans

I.m. ruzz

I found it hard going throughout. Firstly I had trouble relating in any meaningful way to her situation & secondly I found her writing style so repetitive and verbose that you literally could scan a page for a line or two and still get the jist, and to my mind without missing much of the meat. 

It seems interesting theres a pattern in her writing frantic excess and a pattern in her life of frantic excess. If you could find your way to reading this book as a further expression of the defects of her psyche i think it might add a great deal to it. I only uncovered the thought once free of the book. 

There are moments of honesty, and ugly truth but all in all I think she never really let her guard down and allowed us any meaningful look at her mind or feelings. Sure, there are amazing exploits and insane dramas, and a candour about events but they failed to mean much to me for she (defensively??) punctuated each with some small hint that she was closeted proud of them. 

That put me off and despite the sense of watching a train-wreck in progress I found all these things combined to compel the book to be only a symbol of what she might've offered rather than a true offering, and I think the frantic, verbose, repetitive style is meant to mask this truth.

Wasted A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Reviews