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Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (P.S.)
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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
Studio: Harper Perennial
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Editorial 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).
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.
Why would a talented young girl go through the looking glass and step into a netherworld where up is down and food is greed, where death is honor and flesh is weak? Why enter into a love affair with hunger, drugs, sex, and death? Marya Hornbacher sustains both anorexia and bulimia through five lengthy hospitalizations, endless therapy, and the loss of family, friends, jobs, and ultimately, any sense of what it means to be "normal." By the time she is in college, Hornbacher is in the grip of a bout with anorexia so horrifying that it will forever put to rest the romance of wasting away. In this vivid, emotionally wrenching memoir, she re-created the experience and illuminated that tangle of personal, family, and cultural causes underlying eating disorders. Wasted is the story of one woman's travels to the darker side of reality, and her decision to find her way back--on her own terms.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A Wasted Piece of Money.
Before I delve into my textual diatribe on why this book fails on so many levels, let me go ahead and issue this disclaimer: I am aware this is no "feel good" treatise. I understand it's "raw, painful & bloody". I comprehend to the best of my abilities the candor in which she constructed every disposable consonant and vowel imaginable, as I am also very cognizant of the fact I no longer have my Barnes and Noble receipt and cannot return this pile of rubbish for a full refund.
Eating ... Read More
Rating:  - Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
The book was great. It wasn't at all a phony "inspirational" or advice type book, and the author speaks in a refreshingly honest tone; none of the whiney "woe is me" you might expect. Overall an excellent book, although I will say that I was mildly put off by the ending. But I suppose that no one really picks up this book with the intention of using it to replace therapy. She's not going to "cure" you, or even tell you how she was "cured". As long as you know that before hand, it's a great read.
Rating:  - Excellent writing, horrific story
This was exceptionally written. Marya is a girl who suffers from severe anorexia and bulimia and lived to tell about it. When she begins her story and talks about when she first started her bulimia, her observations of things at this young age seemed far beyond her years. Her feelings and thoughts are described in the most intricate detail and intelligence. It isn't a surprise that Marya won awards for her writing.
I grew up during the 70's and 80's but I can't really relate to the obsession ... Read More
Rating: - Incredible Journey Through Hell of EDs
Marya Hornbacher is witty, honest, and surprisingly insightful. Marya does not hold back. I can not imagine what it is like to have the truth (pretty much, the bad, the ugly, and the uglier) out on paper, much less published and widely circulated. It certainly takes courage. There is always a little part of the human psyche that does not want to "look in the mirror" to face the self-created and self-destroyed reality. I was equally impressed to find out that Marya was 23 years old when she wrote this memoir, ... Read More
Rating: - Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
Marya Hornbacher is the mediator between the everyday human being and the world's most widely misunderstood creatures of society: the eating-disordered. In "Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia", she explains to readers that eating disorders are not just "phases" that teenage "girls" go through, but rather an intense, passionate desire for power that "strips you of all power" instead.
Hornbacher, a freelance journalist who is also the author of "The Center of Winter" and "Madness: A Bipolar Life", ... Read More
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