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Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
Precociously intelligent, imaginative, energetic and ambitious, Marya Hornbacher grew up in a comfortable middle-class American home. At the age of five, she returned from a ballet class one day, put on an enormous sweater, curled up on her bed and cried -- because she thought she was fat. By age nine, she was secretly bulimic, throwing up at home after school while watching The Brady Bunch reruns on television and munching Fritos. She added anorexia to her repertoire a few years later and took great pride in her ability to starve.
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 sustained both anorexia and bulimia through five lengthy hospitalizations, endless therapy, the loss of family, friends, jobs and, ultimately, any sense of what it meant to be "normal."
In this vivid, emotionally wrenching memoir, she re-creates the experience and illuminates the tangle of personal, family and cultural causes that underlie eating disorders. Hornbacher's story gathers intensity with each passing year. By the time she is in college and working for a news service in Washington, DC, she is in the grip of a such a horrifying bout with anorexia that it will forever put to rest the romance of wasting away. Down to 52 pounds and counting, Hornbacher's body becomes a the death instinct with the drive to live, mind and body locked in mortal combat.
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. A landmark book from a 23-year-old writer of virtuoso prose, Wasted takes us inside the experience of anorexia and bulimia in a way that no one else has ever done.
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 sustained both anorexia and bulimia through five lengthy hospitalizations, endless therapy, the loss of family, friends, jobs and, ultimately, any sense of what it meant to be "normal."
In this vivid, emotionally wrenching memoir, she re-creates the experience and illuminates the tangle of personal, family and cultural causes that underlie eating disorders. Hornbacher's story gathers intensity with each passing year. By the time she is in college and working for a news service in Washington, DC, she is in the grip of a such a horrifying bout with anorexia that it will forever put to rest the romance of wasting away. Down to 52 pounds and counting, Hornbacher's body becomes a the death instinct with the drive to live, mind and body locked in mortal combat.
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. A landmark book from a 23-year-old writer of virtuoso prose, Wasted takes us inside the experience of anorexia and bulimia in a way that no one else has ever done.
298 pages, Paperback
First published January 14, 1998
About the author
Marya Hornbacher
10 books1,032 followersMarya Hornbacher published her first book, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.), in 1998, when she was twenty-three. What started as a crazy idea suggested by a writer friend became the classic book that has been published in fourteen languages, is taught in universities and writing programs all over the world, and has, according to the thousands of letters Marya has received over the years, changed lives.
Her second book, the acclaimed novel The Center of Winter (HarperCollins, 2005) has been called "masterful," "gorgeous writing," "a stunning acheivement of storytelling," "delicious," and "compulsive reading." Told in three voices, by six-year-old Kate, her mentally ill brother Esau, and their mother Claire, The Center of Winter is the story of a family recovering from a father's suicide in the spare, wintry Minnesota north, a story of struggle, transformation, and hope.
Marya's new memoir Madness: A Life (Houghton Mifflin) is an intense, beautifully written book about the difficulties, and promise, of living with mental illness. It is already being called "the most visceral, important book on mental illness to be published in years." It will be published in April of 2008.
The recipient of a host of awards for journalism and a Pulitzer Prize nominee, Marya has lectured at universities around the country, taught writing and literature, and published in academic and literary journals since 1992. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband Jeff, their cats Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot, and their miniature dachsunds Milton and Dante.
Her second book, the acclaimed novel The Center of Winter (HarperCollins, 2005) has been called "masterful," "gorgeous writing," "a stunning acheivement of storytelling," "delicious," and "compulsive reading." Told in three voices, by six-year-old Kate, her mentally ill brother Esau, and their mother Claire, The Center of Winter is the story of a family recovering from a father's suicide in the spare, wintry Minnesota north, a story of struggle, transformation, and hope.
Marya's new memoir Madness: A Life (Houghton Mifflin) is an intense, beautifully written book about the difficulties, and promise, of living with mental illness. It is already being called "the most visceral, important book on mental illness to be published in years." It will be published in April of 2008.
The recipient of a host of awards for journalism and a Pulitzer Prize nominee, Marya has lectured at universities around the country, taught writing and literature, and published in academic and literary journals since 1992. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband Jeff, their cats Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot, and their miniature dachsunds Milton and Dante.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,440 reviews
October 5, 2022
I've put off reviewing this book for some time on account of the fact Marya's both a friend and the editor of my novel, Hunger for Life. But having reminded myself that I read the book long before Marya and I became friends, and that it meant a great to me even before we got to know one another, I think I can justify writing a few words here.
It was my baby sister, Seonaid, who introduced me to the novel, back in 2007. She had recently read the book herself, and was keen for me to do the same, as she believed it might help me to understand the eating disorder that had already plagued her for more than 15 years. Over the course of the following weekend, I read the entire story of Marya's ten-year struggle with anorexia and bulimia. It was - is - a no-holds-barred account of life with an eating disorder, a terrifying narrative of a young woman's gradual and deliberate path towards self-destruction, and it left me in pieces for weeks afterwards. But here's the thing: despite the pain it caused, it really did help me understand the illness better, and in doing so it brought me closer once more to Seonaid. She died, aged 32, in the summer of 2016 after battling anorexia for over 20 years, but even through my grief, I remain grateful to this memoir for teaching me how to remain strong and patient in the face of this most heartbreaking and cruel disease.
I've read a good many more books about eating disorders since this one, but 'Wasted' remains one of the two best books I've read on the subject (the other is Katie Green's incredible graphic novel, Lighter Than My Shadow). It's certainly not an easy read, and reading it WILL leave you feeling shattered, but for anybody looking to understand the mindset of an ED sufferer, you won't find a better source than this.
It was my baby sister, Seonaid, who introduced me to the novel, back in 2007. She had recently read the book herself, and was keen for me to do the same, as she believed it might help me to understand the eating disorder that had already plagued her for more than 15 years. Over the course of the following weekend, I read the entire story of Marya's ten-year struggle with anorexia and bulimia. It was - is - a no-holds-barred account of life with an eating disorder, a terrifying narrative of a young woman's gradual and deliberate path towards self-destruction, and it left me in pieces for weeks afterwards. But here's the thing: despite the pain it caused, it really did help me understand the illness better, and in doing so it brought me closer once more to Seonaid. She died, aged 32, in the summer of 2016 after battling anorexia for over 20 years, but even through my grief, I remain grateful to this memoir for teaching me how to remain strong and patient in the face of this most heartbreaking and cruel disease.
I've read a good many more books about eating disorders since this one, but 'Wasted' remains one of the two best books I've read on the subject (the other is Katie Green's incredible graphic novel, Lighter Than My Shadow). It's certainly not an easy read, and reading it WILL leave you feeling shattered, but for anybody looking to understand the mindset of an ED sufferer, you won't find a better source than this.
November 30, 2010
Possibly the finest auto-biography I have ever read. People who have suffered from EDs will complain that this book is packed full of triggers, but so is America's Next Top Model, and I can't say anything about the quality of THAT writing.
This book is a genuine, gripping story of a youth literally thrown away in favor of madness.
For anyone who has not suffered from some incarnation of disordered eating, it will seem surreal, and at times, utterly unbelievable.
The book is effortlessly fluid. The story moves along at a perfect pace, with enough detail to give a horrifying sense of understanding, but not so much as to become preachy or dull. Most of the other characters seem two dimensional, but you get the impression that they seemed that way to her at the time- as though they were experienced in a dream.
"Wasted" follows the life of the author from her strange and sudden plunge into anorexia and bulimia as a child, all the way to her current state of semi-recovery.
She goes from moderately neurotic, to waiting patiently at death's doorstop, to being almost normal, recounting for us, her audience, all the stops along the way. She goes through an utterly excruciating journey, and finally comes out the other end- not intact, and not happily ever after, but alive.
It is both victorious and tragic, disturbing and moving, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
This book is a genuine, gripping story of a youth literally thrown away in favor of madness.
For anyone who has not suffered from some incarnation of disordered eating, it will seem surreal, and at times, utterly unbelievable.
The book is effortlessly fluid. The story moves along at a perfect pace, with enough detail to give a horrifying sense of understanding, but not so much as to become preachy or dull. Most of the other characters seem two dimensional, but you get the impression that they seemed that way to her at the time- as though they were experienced in a dream.
"Wasted" follows the life of the author from her strange and sudden plunge into anorexia and bulimia as a child, all the way to her current state of semi-recovery.
She goes from moderately neurotic, to waiting patiently at death's doorstop, to being almost normal, recounting for us, her audience, all the stops along the way. She goes through an utterly excruciating journey, and finally comes out the other end- not intact, and not happily ever after, but alive.
It is both victorious and tragic, disturbing and moving, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
December 29, 2011
eta: i think it's important to note that this book was first published in 1998 - when things like tumblr did not exist. for a generation that learned to get all information from books, this book was the key to tricks and tips for anorexia. not that you couldn't figure them out for yourself, but if you were on the edge or something, this gave you ways. i don't actually say that this book should be censored, i say i wish there was a way to put warnings on it. i say i think it's an important book for non-ED people - i.e. family and friends. and i do think it's important for people with EDs, i just don't like the framing all that much.
that is a personal preference. see my reviews of elizabeth wurtzel's books - i have issues with people with mental illness who seem to lack agency in getting better. hornbacher isn't 100% committed to getting better at the end of this. she isn't committed to recovery. and that's fine, for her, but i wish she hadn't written it until she was committed. everything else in the book remains true, and i think would have resonated more and been stronger if she was committed - not necessarily a "happily ever after" but a "anything to stop this disease". (the kind of ironic thing is that she does get the happily ever after.)
what i loved about Madness: A Bipolar Life was that i felt like she truly tapped into what was driving her to do the things she did. that she finally was brutally honest, that she committed to getting better. honestly, "crazypeoplememoirs" always walk a fine line between sensationalist literature, victimization, fact and moralizing.
i appreciate the story. i appreciate the willingness to show the bald face of EDs. but i still question why this is the book she chose to write, who she intended her audience to be, and what she hoped to accomplish. because i think the author that wrote wasted would have different opinions than the author of madness, or sane, and i do think that's worth considering.
(and, for the record, i have done extensive work with women in their teens and older with EDs. i said 25 not because i don't think people older can suffer from it, but rather that they are already aware of all the tricks and tips. these illnesses are absolutely devastating, and they exist, and i think there is a balance society needs to start dealing with in terms of celebrating thin women and calling healthy women "fat" or on pregnancy watch, and that this book deals with the "strength" required to have an ED, and not necessarily the elements of self-hatred and comorbid diagnoses and beliefs that lead a lot of women (and men) to develop EDs.)
*
2005:
i think this book should be pulled from the shelves of most bookstores, or at least not giving to anyone under the age of 25, but i am against censorship, so mostly i just wish this wasn't the book she chose to write.
for a non-ED audience, it plays well. the story is gripping, it goes into detail about the horror of living with an ED, it discusses why the ED is so hard to give up.
for the ED audience, the book is literally packed with tricks and tips and ways to cheat and get around your doctors.
hornbacher claims that the point of writing the book was to deglamourize EDs. the problem is, even she, at the end of the book, has not fully committed to giving up her ED. how can you write a book saying there is nothing good about EDs without resolving to give it up yourself? i have heard people talk about how they appreciated her "brutal honesty" - to me it read more as an attention-seeking method of writing. to me, she made herself out as a victim, and she is still a victim at the end - she still does not have control over her disorder.
of course, the ending is very true to real life. recovery is a painful, long process with frequent relapses, especially for those who have been hospitalized. but instead of exploring why that is the case, she spends her time talking about how she cheated the system. she does not give up her basic system of beliefs that "caused" the ED in the first place. she is unapologetic and, to me, paints herself as someone without any agency in the recovery of ED, which infuriates me.
it's sad, because i think she has a lot of really good things to say. she just chooses to take a different route, kind of the sensationalistic route rather than the "de-glamourization" she claims to have wanted. it was disappointing to me, and it was frustrating, and it worried me that kids with ED are recommending this book to each other in order to find tips and "thinspiration". i don't know, i found it profoundly depressing, which hardly ever happens. i guess i just feel like it was such a wasted (pardon the bad pun) opportunity to make a positive impact on the ED community.
(i agree with whoever said stay away from this book if you are in recovery and go visit something-fishy.com instead.)
that is a personal preference. see my reviews of elizabeth wurtzel's books - i have issues with people with mental illness who seem to lack agency in getting better. hornbacher isn't 100% committed to getting better at the end of this. she isn't committed to recovery. and that's fine, for her, but i wish she hadn't written it until she was committed. everything else in the book remains true, and i think would have resonated more and been stronger if she was committed - not necessarily a "happily ever after" but a "anything to stop this disease". (the kind of ironic thing is that she does get the happily ever after.)
what i loved about Madness: A Bipolar Life was that i felt like she truly tapped into what was driving her to do the things she did. that she finally was brutally honest, that she committed to getting better. honestly, "crazypeoplememoirs" always walk a fine line between sensationalist literature, victimization, fact and moralizing.
i appreciate the story. i appreciate the willingness to show the bald face of EDs. but i still question why this is the book she chose to write, who she intended her audience to be, and what she hoped to accomplish. because i think the author that wrote wasted would have different opinions than the author of madness, or sane, and i do think that's worth considering.
(and, for the record, i have done extensive work with women in their teens and older with EDs. i said 25 not because i don't think people older can suffer from it, but rather that they are already aware of all the tricks and tips. these illnesses are absolutely devastating, and they exist, and i think there is a balance society needs to start dealing with in terms of celebrating thin women and calling healthy women "fat" or on pregnancy watch, and that this book deals with the "strength" required to have an ED, and not necessarily the elements of self-hatred and comorbid diagnoses and beliefs that lead a lot of women (and men) to develop EDs.)
*
2005:
i think this book should be pulled from the shelves of most bookstores, or at least not giving to anyone under the age of 25, but i am against censorship, so mostly i just wish this wasn't the book she chose to write.
for a non-ED audience, it plays well. the story is gripping, it goes into detail about the horror of living with an ED, it discusses why the ED is so hard to give up.
for the ED audience, the book is literally packed with tricks and tips and ways to cheat and get around your doctors.
hornbacher claims that the point of writing the book was to deglamourize EDs. the problem is, even she, at the end of the book, has not fully committed to giving up her ED. how can you write a book saying there is nothing good about EDs without resolving to give it up yourself? i have heard people talk about how they appreciated her "brutal honesty" - to me it read more as an attention-seeking method of writing. to me, she made herself out as a victim, and she is still a victim at the end - she still does not have control over her disorder.
of course, the ending is very true to real life. recovery is a painful, long process with frequent relapses, especially for those who have been hospitalized. but instead of exploring why that is the case, she spends her time talking about how she cheated the system. she does not give up her basic system of beliefs that "caused" the ED in the first place. she is unapologetic and, to me, paints herself as someone without any agency in the recovery of ED, which infuriates me.
it's sad, because i think she has a lot of really good things to say. she just chooses to take a different route, kind of the sensationalistic route rather than the "de-glamourization" she claims to have wanted. it was disappointing to me, and it was frustrating, and it worried me that kids with ED are recommending this book to each other in order to find tips and "thinspiration". i don't know, i found it profoundly depressing, which hardly ever happens. i guess i just feel like it was such a wasted (pardon the bad pun) opportunity to make a positive impact on the ED community.
(i agree with whoever said stay away from this book if you are in recovery and go visit something-fishy.com instead.)
May 4, 2014
I read this book when it was first released ---(its 'very' disturbing). I wouldn't know how many stars to give it actually. I never like to 'rate' memoirs in the first place.
I can't give it 5 stars --I can't give it 1 star ---(so I went for 3) ----but I'll never forget the story.
Eating disorders are a disease. Marya Hornbacher does not sugar-coat 'anything'. People who have suffered anorexic --(or been a parent of a child) --'lived' this life deeply may 'not' want to read this book. NO SOLID answers --NO SOLID solutions to HOW to REALLY end this disease (at least at the time when this book was written).
I believe MUCH more scientific-base-information-(from real chemical imbalance) - is making the biggest difference into this disease today. I've a friend (medical doctor) --doing some wonderful research now --(putting together programs which were much different than just 15 years ago). --
Things our daughter 'rejected' (5 times in hospital programs) -- were for good reasons. The were being 'feed' foods which their bodies WERE reacting to. 'diet' was NOT being considered ---(they were being 'forced' to eat anything given to them --dead -processed hospital food) ---
We've learned these people (more than most) ---need a very 'clean' whole food diet ---(allergy checking--etc).
I hope to god this author, Marya is doing well today. I haven't kept up with her.
Our own daughter (who suffered for 14 years) ---is THRIVING --doing WONDERFUL ---
She healed herself HER way! It took 14 years ---but she is strong -bright -independent-supporting herself --32 years old --beautiful --(very talented to boot).
Wishing all that suffer with eating disorders to get the help THEY need to get well!
I can't give it 5 stars --I can't give it 1 star ---(so I went for 3) ----but I'll never forget the story.
Eating disorders are a disease. Marya Hornbacher does not sugar-coat 'anything'. People who have suffered anorexic --(or been a parent of a child) --'lived' this life deeply may 'not' want to read this book. NO SOLID answers --NO SOLID solutions to HOW to REALLY end this disease (at least at the time when this book was written).
I believe MUCH more scientific-base-information-(from real chemical imbalance) - is making the biggest difference into this disease today. I've a friend (medical doctor) --doing some wonderful research now --(putting together programs which were much different than just 15 years ago). --
Things our daughter 'rejected' (5 times in hospital programs) -- were for good reasons. The were being 'feed' foods which their bodies WERE reacting to. 'diet' was NOT being considered ---(they were being 'forced' to eat anything given to them --dead -processed hospital food) ---
We've learned these people (more than most) ---need a very 'clean' whole food diet ---(allergy checking--etc).
I hope to god this author, Marya is doing well today. I haven't kept up with her.
Our own daughter (who suffered for 14 years) ---is THRIVING --doing WONDERFUL ---
She healed herself HER way! It took 14 years ---but she is strong -bright -independent-supporting herself --32 years old --beautiful --(very talented to boot).
Wishing all that suffer with eating disorders to get the help THEY need to get well!
February 25, 2017
3.5 stars
I once had an eating disorder several years ago, so I appreciate Marya Hornbacher's unflinching honesty in Wasted. She holds nothing back in this memoir, sharing the immense pain that accompanies anorexia and bulimia: the preoccupation with calories that takes over your life, the obsession with food that steals your energy from your passions, and the shame and guilt that comes with not feeling strong enough to resist your disorder. Published in 1997, Wasted may have very well served as one of this country's first exposures to eating disorders. Thus, I applaud Hornbacher's courage in providing us with such a raw and vulnerable look into her life. Here is one quote about the emotional upheaval that often underlies and contributes to the development of eating disorders:
"All of us carry around countless bags of dusty old knickknacks dated from childhood: collected resentments, long lists of wounds of greater or lesser significance, glorified memories, absolute certainties that later turn out to be wrong. Humans are emotional pack rats. These bags define us. My baggage made me someone I did not want to be: a cringing girl, a sensitive plant, a needy greedy sort of thing. I began, at an early age, to try to rid myself o my bags. I began to construct a new role. I made a plan. When I was six, I wrote it down with my green calligraphy pen and buried it in the backyard. My plan: To get thin. To be great. To get out."
Despite my appreciation for Hornbacher's memoir as a whole, I did not enjoy its lack of organization. She jumps around between times and settings in an often incomprehensible way. Her prose has a tendency to fall into an unrefined stream of consciousness that trends more toward unfiltered emotional catharsis than an understandable conception of her life. You could say that this messy writing highlights the disorientation that comes with an eating disorder. However, I would argue that writers have an obligation to readers - in particular to vulnerable, younger readers - to do their best to display some of their healing alongside their pain, or at least their path toward healing.
This lack of emphasis on recovery makes me skeptical of Hornbacher's motives. Of course, I believe her narrative and feel honored and awed that she shared it with us. At the same time, in some ways Wasted glorifies eating disorders instead of portraying them as horrid illnesses we must strive to prevent and rail against. I wish that Hornbacher had spent more time describing her recovery, as well as the joys and challenges that accompanied it. I will end this review with a passage toward the very end of the book, about strength:
"It is not a sudden leap from sick to well. It is a slow, strange meander from sick to mostly well. The misconception that eating disorders are a medical disease in the traditional sense is not helpful here. There is no 'cure.' A pill will not fix it, though it may help. Ditto therapy, ditto food, ditto endless support from family and friends. You fix it yourself. It is the hardest thing that I have ever done, and I found myself stronger for doing it. Much stronger.
Never, never underestimate the power of desire. If you want to live badly enough, you can live."
I once had an eating disorder several years ago, so I appreciate Marya Hornbacher's unflinching honesty in Wasted. She holds nothing back in this memoir, sharing the immense pain that accompanies anorexia and bulimia: the preoccupation with calories that takes over your life, the obsession with food that steals your energy from your passions, and the shame and guilt that comes with not feeling strong enough to resist your disorder. Published in 1997, Wasted may have very well served as one of this country's first exposures to eating disorders. Thus, I applaud Hornbacher's courage in providing us with such a raw and vulnerable look into her life. Here is one quote about the emotional upheaval that often underlies and contributes to the development of eating disorders:
"All of us carry around countless bags of dusty old knickknacks dated from childhood: collected resentments, long lists of wounds of greater or lesser significance, glorified memories, absolute certainties that later turn out to be wrong. Humans are emotional pack rats. These bags define us. My baggage made me someone I did not want to be: a cringing girl, a sensitive plant, a needy greedy sort of thing. I began, at an early age, to try to rid myself o my bags. I began to construct a new role. I made a plan. When I was six, I wrote it down with my green calligraphy pen and buried it in the backyard. My plan: To get thin. To be great. To get out."
Despite my appreciation for Hornbacher's memoir as a whole, I did not enjoy its lack of organization. She jumps around between times and settings in an often incomprehensible way. Her prose has a tendency to fall into an unrefined stream of consciousness that trends more toward unfiltered emotional catharsis than an understandable conception of her life. You could say that this messy writing highlights the disorientation that comes with an eating disorder. However, I would argue that writers have an obligation to readers - in particular to vulnerable, younger readers - to do their best to display some of their healing alongside their pain, or at least their path toward healing.
This lack of emphasis on recovery makes me skeptical of Hornbacher's motives. Of course, I believe her narrative and feel honored and awed that she shared it with us. At the same time, in some ways Wasted glorifies eating disorders instead of portraying them as horrid illnesses we must strive to prevent and rail against. I wish that Hornbacher had spent more time describing her recovery, as well as the joys and challenges that accompanied it. I will end this review with a passage toward the very end of the book, about strength:
"It is not a sudden leap from sick to well. It is a slow, strange meander from sick to mostly well. The misconception that eating disorders are a medical disease in the traditional sense is not helpful here. There is no 'cure.' A pill will not fix it, though it may help. Ditto therapy, ditto food, ditto endless support from family and friends. You fix it yourself. It is the hardest thing that I have ever done, and I found myself stronger for doing it. Much stronger.
Never, never underestimate the power of desire. If you want to live badly enough, you can live."
September 2, 2007
It would be tacky to put this on my "food" shelf, wouldn't it? But I did get so hungry while reading it that I got up and made spaghetti carbonara. It was delicious.
So this is a memoir of the author's ten-year struggle with bulimia and anorexia. I found it different from other works I've read on eating disorders, in that the author doesn't go for easy explanations of why she almost killed herself. She wasn't trying to be pretty or perfect or to control her world, at least not solely. She was really, acutely mentally ill, and that recovery is as big a problem as the physical illnesses associated with the eating disorder.
I found the book self-indulgent, arrogant, and obnoxiously smug in places, but honest and lacerating in others. Sometimes all five at once. This isn't a perfectly written book—reviewers swooned over her prose when she wrote it at 23, but in my opinion Hornbacher could have used a good, judicious editor to cut down some of her babbling bullshit.
It's an impressive effort, though. I was curious when I finished if the author is still alive, because the book was published almost 10 years ago. She is, and has another memoir coming out next spring that fills in where this one left off. I'm not sure if I want to spend any more time inside her head, but I'm intrigued.
So this is a memoir of the author's ten-year struggle with bulimia and anorexia. I found it different from other works I've read on eating disorders, in that the author doesn't go for easy explanations of why she almost killed herself. She wasn't trying to be pretty or perfect or to control her world, at least not solely. She was really, acutely mentally ill, and that recovery is as big a problem as the physical illnesses associated with the eating disorder.
I found the book self-indulgent, arrogant, and obnoxiously smug in places, but honest and lacerating in others. Sometimes all five at once. This isn't a perfectly written book—reviewers swooned over her prose when she wrote it at 23, but in my opinion Hornbacher could have used a good, judicious editor to cut down some of her babbling bullshit.
It's an impressive effort, though. I was curious when I finished if the author is still alive, because the book was published almost 10 years ago. She is, and has another memoir coming out next spring that fills in where this one left off. I'm not sure if I want to spend any more time inside her head, but I'm intrigued.
October 6, 2009
Marya is a fantastic fucking memoirist. There are a couple reasons this is all the more incredible: First, that she'd found such a voice and command of prose at 23, and second, that a 23 year-old would have lived a life worth writing about. The language is appropriately jagged, with short, sharp sentences, embodying a sparse, terrifying narrative of the scattered moments recalling her gradual and deliberate self-destruction.
She spares no one, including herself, in her examination of the causes and effects of her disorder. She stops briefly, as objectively as a memoirist could be expected to, on the childhood memories that grew to define her outlook. But, rather than simply laying the blame on someone's doorstep, she perpetually questions her own rationales after the fact, never dwelling on what might have been had one thing or another not happened. It's possible, she allows, that there's no environmental cause at all.
She spares no one, including herself, in her examination of the causes and effects of her disorder. She stops briefly, as objectively as a memoirist could be expected to, on the childhood memories that grew to define her outlook. But, rather than simply laying the blame on someone's doorstep, she perpetually questions her own rationales after the fact, never dwelling on what might have been had one thing or another not happened. It's possible, she allows, that there's no environmental cause at all.
March 3, 2008
I'm ambivalent about this book. Certainly, at times, she pulled no punches...yet at other times, still a bit under the sway of her disorder, she seemed to be bragging about her "successes" in the extremes of her eating disorder. She wasn't really healthy yet, and that came through in ways she probably never intended. In many ways, it helped me understand how eating disorders work. In other ways (again, I'm sure unintentional on the author's part), I began to understand how eating disorders and personality disorders can often go hand in hand. But by the end of the book, I just really didn't like her very much. You know how sometimes brutal honesty can feel disingenuous, as if meant to distract or redirect your attention from something else? It felt a bit like that.
February 5, 2013
Edited to add disclaimer. PLEASE err on the side of extreme caution if you are recovering from ED or were planning to share this book with a young person who may be in a vulnerable position. As someone who has struggled from an ED myself, I can say that this book contains many things that could trigger you. It also contains graphic detail of how to hide food, how to get rid of food, how to trick people, etc.
Basic Summary: Well, I think the title sort of covers it. It's a memoir of the author's hellish descent into the dark world of Anorexia and Bulimia.
The Pros: I think this is an important book, a book that really needed to be written and put in the hands of everyone. If I thought he would understand, I would hand this off to my boyfriend and tell him that every girl healthy or not has felt similar to Marya in their lives, in their judgments of themselves, their food, etc. Not many to her extent, but I would say this book can strike a chord with just about all women to some degree. I admire her forthrightness, her bluntness and her bravery for writing this book. I, especially, think the last 20 pages of her book are very powerful. Just for their striking honesty and the light they shed on the after math of a life ravaged by eating disorders, often silently. By rule, I almost never give 5-star ratings to even my favorite books, but, I had to pull one out for this book.
The Cons: She is not a natural writer, in my opinion. If Lynne Truss (author of grammar book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation) were to see this book I fear she would fall into cardiac arrest. It's an abomination on the English language. She has a Thing About seemingly Random Capitalization and abundant "use" of "quotations" that are arbitrary. Sometimes in the middle of! a sentence she will use an exclamation point where I think italics might have done the trick. She has footnotes which are, at times, used just fine and mark a specific article/study/author/etc. Other times, as I just read, the footnote is nearly half a page long and just seems like she should have included it in regular print as a part of her story. (As, the footnotes are generally her elaborating on a subject. Which, in a memoir, does not usually warrant a long footnote but rather a new paragraph instead). As you see, these are technical notes and nitpicks. I have no qualms about her subject or story.
Memorable Quotations:
1) "I hold my breath and shut my eyes when I pull on a pair [of jeans] in the dressing room, afraid they will now, as then, get stuck at my hips and there i will stand, absurd, staring at the excess of hips that should, if I were a good person, be "slim". "
2) "Bear in mind, people with eating disorders tend to be both competitive and intelligent. We are incredibly perfectionistic. We often excel in school, athletics, artistic pursuits. We also tend to quit without warning. Refuse to go to school, drop out, quit jobs, leave lovers, move, lose all our money. We get sick of being impressive. Rather, we tire of having to seem impressive. As a rule, most of never really believed we were any good in the first place."
3) "I was really annoyed when told I was going to die and rather petulantly went, Well fuck you then I won't". - After being told she would only have a week left to live, at 52 pounds.
Basic Summary: Well, I think the title sort of covers it. It's a memoir of the author's hellish descent into the dark world of Anorexia and Bulimia.
The Pros: I think this is an important book, a book that really needed to be written and put in the hands of everyone. If I thought he would understand, I would hand this off to my boyfriend and tell him that every girl healthy or not has felt similar to Marya in their lives, in their judgments of themselves, their food, etc. Not many to her extent, but I would say this book can strike a chord with just about all women to some degree. I admire her forthrightness, her bluntness and her bravery for writing this book. I, especially, think the last 20 pages of her book are very powerful. Just for their striking honesty and the light they shed on the after math of a life ravaged by eating disorders, often silently. By rule, I almost never give 5-star ratings to even my favorite books, but, I had to pull one out for this book.
The Cons: She is not a natural writer, in my opinion. If Lynne Truss (author of grammar book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation) were to see this book I fear she would fall into cardiac arrest. It's an abomination on the English language. She has a Thing About seemingly Random Capitalization and abundant "use" of "quotations" that are arbitrary. Sometimes in the middle of! a sentence she will use an exclamation point where I think italics might have done the trick. She has footnotes which are, at times, used just fine and mark a specific article/study/author/etc. Other times, as I just read, the footnote is nearly half a page long and just seems like she should have included it in regular print as a part of her story. (As, the footnotes are generally her elaborating on a subject. Which, in a memoir, does not usually warrant a long footnote but rather a new paragraph instead). As you see, these are technical notes and nitpicks. I have no qualms about her subject or story.
Memorable Quotations:
1) "I hold my breath and shut my eyes when I pull on a pair [of jeans] in the dressing room, afraid they will now, as then, get stuck at my hips and there i will stand, absurd, staring at the excess of hips that should, if I were a good person, be "slim". "
2) "Bear in mind, people with eating disorders tend to be both competitive and intelligent. We are incredibly perfectionistic. We often excel in school, athletics, artistic pursuits. We also tend to quit without warning. Refuse to go to school, drop out, quit jobs, leave lovers, move, lose all our money. We get sick of being impressive. Rather, we tire of having to seem impressive. As a rule, most of never really believed we were any good in the first place."
3) "I was really annoyed when told I was going to die and rather petulantly went, Well fuck you then I won't". - After being told she would only have a week left to live, at 52 pounds.
September 18, 2010
My relationship with this book is love/hate. It kind of reminds me of Prozac Nation in the sense that the first couple chapters about her average middle-class childhood are pretty boring and pointless. She tries to describe every little bad thing that happened to her like she is the only one in the world who ever received less than perfect parenting. However keep reading because unlike Prozac Nation this book actually gets pretty good as time goes on and you get into the shocking rock-bottom details of her eating disorder. I think once you get to these parts the book is written beautifully, it is engaging and is very easy to get addicted to. However, the ending left me yearning for a little bit more.
Another thing that is totally off-putting about this book is that it is A MAJOR TRIGGER for people with eating disorders. When I read this I was in recovery and feel back into that hole deeper than I had before. The book is good but it left me wondering why someone who has been through what she has would write such a thing! The whole time it seems like she is trying to seem like the worst and most ill anorexic/bulimic in the world, it is almost like she is gloating about her illness! If you have an eating disorder you will leave wondering "Why didn't I do all those things she did, thats pretty smart" or "Why couldn't I be that strong and lose as much weight as she did?". It gives out secrets and tips that could easily kill you, glorifies it and makes it seem like its no big deal. I would HIGHLY recommend that no one with an eating disorder comes within 10 feet of this book.
However, if the thought of an eating disorder confuses you, makes you laugh or just plain disgusts you than I do recommend this book. AS LONG AS YOU HAVE NO RISK OF DEVELOPING AN EATING DISORDER it is very descriptive and educational, bringing you into a raw world of pain and demons that so many feel everyday.
Another thing that is totally off-putting about this book is that it is A MAJOR TRIGGER for people with eating disorders. When I read this I was in recovery and feel back into that hole deeper than I had before. The book is good but it left me wondering why someone who has been through what she has would write such a thing! The whole time it seems like she is trying to seem like the worst and most ill anorexic/bulimic in the world, it is almost like she is gloating about her illness! If you have an eating disorder you will leave wondering "Why didn't I do all those things she did, thats pretty smart" or "Why couldn't I be that strong and lose as much weight as she did?". It gives out secrets and tips that could easily kill you, glorifies it and makes it seem like its no big deal. I would HIGHLY recommend that no one with an eating disorder comes within 10 feet of this book.
However, if the thought of an eating disorder confuses you, makes you laugh or just plain disgusts you than I do recommend this book. AS LONG AS YOU HAVE NO RISK OF DEVELOPING AN EATING DISORDER it is very descriptive and educational, bringing you into a raw world of pain and demons that so many feel everyday.
July 28, 2015
4.5 stars.
I scrolled through some of the reviews, and most of the two-three star reviews complained about this book being triggering, dangerous, etc. They said it contained "tips" and should not be read by people with an ED.
First of all, people with an ED figure out the "tips" by themselves sooner or later. A simple google search, pro ED websites, all offer the same "tips". For non ED sufferers, these tips might seem new and absurd, but most people with an ED would have already known about them, or have their own ways to keep their parents or loved ones from knowing about their disease. I'm not saying it's a good thing—I'm just saying this isn't a solid reason to censor this book or to warn people away from it. Recovering anorexics/bulimics, however, should stay far, far away from this book. Or any ED related book, anyway.
The author doesn't fully recover from her ED. Not exactly sure why this upsets people—I thought it was a pretty accurate portrayal of an ED. It's not always white and black. Some people never truly recover. That's the horrible reality of having an ED.
Wasted was well-written, slipping effortlessly between first and second person, making the story more vivid and alive. Though it irked some people, I thought it was done pretty well.
In conclusion, definitely a book worth reading, and can increase your understanding of EDs.
I scrolled through some of the reviews, and most of the two-three star reviews complained about this book being triggering, dangerous, etc. They said it contained "tips" and should not be read by people with an ED.
First of all, people with an ED figure out the "tips" by themselves sooner or later. A simple google search, pro ED websites, all offer the same "tips". For non ED sufferers, these tips might seem new and absurd, but most people with an ED would have already known about them, or have their own ways to keep their parents or loved ones from knowing about their disease. I'm not saying it's a good thing—I'm just saying this isn't a solid reason to censor this book or to warn people away from it. Recovering anorexics/bulimics, however, should stay far, far away from this book. Or any ED related book, anyway.
The author doesn't fully recover from her ED. Not exactly sure why this upsets people—I thought it was a pretty accurate portrayal of an ED. It's not always white and black. Some people never truly recover. That's the horrible reality of having an ED.
Wasted was well-written, slipping effortlessly between first and second person, making the story more vivid and alive. Though it irked some people, I thought it was done pretty well.
In conclusion, definitely a book worth reading, and can increase your understanding of EDs.
July 26, 2023
C'est un témoignage très dur mais réaliste de Marya Hornbacher qui a eu de graves problèmes du comportement alimentaire.
Je pensais faire une petite chronique pleine d'anecdotes personnelles, mais finalement c'est un sujet qui me touche tellement au corps que je me retrouve à ne rien avoir à dire.
J'ai failli faire un malaise à la lecture de certaines pages. Ca m'a rappelé beaucoup de choses vécues de mon côté. Ca m'a aussi pas mal expliqué pourquoi j'avais des TCA graves plus jeunes, et surtout pourquoi on ne s'en sort jamais vraiment, même si ça va "bien" (selon mes standards) depuis plusieurs années.
Force à vous si vous souffrez. Vous n'êtes pas seul.e ❤
TW dans tous les sens.
Je pensais faire une petite chronique pleine d'anecdotes personnelles, mais finalement c'est un sujet qui me touche tellement au corps que je me retrouve à ne rien avoir à dire.
J'ai failli faire un malaise à la lecture de certaines pages. Ca m'a rappelé beaucoup de choses vécues de mon côté. Ca m'a aussi pas mal expliqué pourquoi j'avais des TCA graves plus jeunes, et surtout pourquoi on ne s'en sort jamais vraiment, même si ça va "bien" (selon mes standards) depuis plusieurs années.
Force à vous si vous souffrez. Vous n'êtes pas seul.e ❤
TW dans tous les sens.
August 20, 2008
Although I can see why so many like this book, I found it to be dangerous. As an anorexic I found the book great because it had tips in it. This is dangerous though also can be good to read for people trying to live with an anorexic or people who don't have this disease.
Definatly not a book for someone in the throes of an ED to read.
Definatly not a book for someone in the throes of an ED to read.
March 30, 2019
Šioje knygoje pateikiama absoliuti apnuoginta tiesa apie valgymo sutrikimus. Bulimija ir anoreksija. Be jokių pagražinimų. Jos autorė jau nuo 9 metų įsisuko į valgymo sutrikimų liūną ir gerą dešimtmetį krito tik žemyn. Kartais atrodė, kad žemiau jau nebėra kur. Buvo akimirkų, kai žvelgė mirčiai į akis. Kai kam gali pasirodyti, kad knyga šlykšti, per daug atvira, kad taip nebūna. Bet tai tikras gyvenimas. Tai Marya Hornbacher patirtis.
Baisu suvokti, kad dėl daugybės veiksnių, maža mergaitė, kuriai tikrai turėtų rūpėti ne jos svoris, pradeda vertinti save kaip kažkokį daiktą. Kiek centimetrų, kiek kilogramų. Devynmetė svarsto apie savo užpakalio dydį. O kur tada jos vaikystė? Tokios kaip ir nebuvo. Noriu pabrėžti, jog tikrai nesmerkiu. Tiesiog baisu ir stebina. Autorė neįvardina konkreči�� priežasčių, kodėl taip atsitiko, bet užsimena apie visą kompleksą galimų veiksnių: šeimos valgymo įpročiai, žurnalai, filmai ir pan. Tiesiog šiurpsta oda skaitant kaip nuo vieno savidestrukcinio veiksmo mergina metasi prie kito ir kaip tie veiksmai tampa vis agresyvesni. Vėliau pati autorė suvoks, kad visais įmanomais būdais bandė save sunaikinti.
Nereikia galvoti, kad taip atsitinka tik silpnoms. Pabandykite nevalgyti diena iš dienos - ar tikrai taip jau lengva? Nereikia mąstyti, kad taip atsitinka tik riboto intelekto asmenims. Autorės rašymas rodo ką kita - tai sužalota, tačiau labai intelektuali mergina, kurios sąskaitoje perskaityta ne viena knyga. O koks humoras! Turbūt reiktų sakyti juodas, nes pritvinkęs sarkazmo, bet tikrai stiprus. Nors tema labai sunki, bet knygos skaitymas - vienas malonumas. Čia susipina du mano
mėgstamiausi dalykai - moksliniai faktai ir kokybiškas sarkazmu persmelktas rašymas.
Kviečiu šią knygą perskaityti visoms moterims. Nesakysiu, kad turite pamilti savo kūna, nes banalu ir kažkaip narciziška, bet būtent mes patiriame didžiulį spaudimą atrodyti tobulai, mesti svorį ir daryti viską, kad atitikti komercinio pasaulio sukurtą standartą. Ar mes norime visos atrodyti vienodai? Aš ne. Aš už individualumą, už asmenybę ir kritinį mąstymą. Gero skaitymo.
Baisu suvokti, kad dėl daugybės veiksnių, maža mergaitė, kuriai tikrai turėtų rūpėti ne jos svoris, pradeda vertinti save kaip kažkokį daiktą. Kiek centimetrų, kiek kilogramų. Devynmetė svarsto apie savo užpakalio dydį. O kur tada jos vaikystė? Tokios kaip ir nebuvo. Noriu pabrėžti, jog tikrai nesmerkiu. Tiesiog baisu ir stebina. Autorė neįvardina konkreči�� priežasčių, kodėl taip atsitiko, bet užsimena apie visą kompleksą galimų veiksnių: šeimos valgymo įpročiai, žurnalai, filmai ir pan. Tiesiog šiurpsta oda skaitant kaip nuo vieno savidestrukcinio veiksmo mergina metasi prie kito ir kaip tie veiksmai tampa vis agresyvesni. Vėliau pati autorė suvoks, kad visais įmanomais būdais bandė save sunaikinti.
Nereikia galvoti, kad taip atsitinka tik silpnoms. Pabandykite nevalgyti diena iš dienos - ar tikrai taip jau lengva? Nereikia mąstyti, kad taip atsitinka tik riboto intelekto asmenims. Autorės rašymas rodo ką kita - tai sužalota, tačiau labai intelektuali mergina, kurios sąskaitoje perskaityta ne viena knyga. O koks humoras! Turbūt reiktų sakyti juodas, nes pritvinkęs sarkazmo, bet tikrai stiprus. Nors tema labai sunki, bet knygos skaitymas - vienas malonumas. Čia susipina du mano
mėgstamiausi dalykai - moksliniai faktai ir kokybiškas sarkazmu persmelktas rašymas.
Kviečiu šią knygą perskaityti visoms moterims. Nesakysiu, kad turite pamilti savo kūna, nes banalu ir kažkaip narciziška, bet būtent mes patiriame didžiulį spaudimą atrodyti tobulai, mesti svorį ir daryti viską, kad atitikti komercinio pasaulio sukurtą standartą. Ar mes norime visos atrodyti vienodai? Aš ne. Aš už individualumą, už asmenybę ir kritinį mąstymą. Gero skaitymo.
May 22, 2007
Ok, I read this a long time ago, but it's still quite possibly the best book on eating disorders -- or even on adolescent mental illness -- that I've ever read. Hornbacher is intelligent, avoids cliches and above all, avoids making herself sound good when she can tell the truth instead. A bracing departure from the "girls can't help starving themselves to death when they see all those models in those glossy magazines" line of thinking about eating disorders -- a line of thinking that treats those suffering from eating disorders as helpless and mindlessly programmable, rather than as complicated human beings.
February 7, 2017
just a little reminder:
you're beautiful.
you're worth it.
you're more than your body, your weight, your thoughts.
you're allowed to eat.
you deserve to eat.
[TRIGGER WARNING FUCKING TRIGGER WARNING]
as someone who is currently struggling to kick my eating disorder ass, i can say that this book triggered me a lot. made me realize how fucked up i am. but it also made me feel less alone and misunderstood. marya did not enjoy writing this book. i did not enjoy reading it. because it hurts. writing and reading about it. you're dying but you're still there. you want to get better but, at the same time, you want to get worse. you want to eat and smile and just live your fucking life but, at the same time, you just want to starve till your heart stops or to throw up till blood is all you can see. maybe then you will feel clean. maybe then you feel better. the truth is: you won't. your eating disorder is lying to you. your eating disorder is KILLING you. it's not about the weight, the physical appearance , even the food, itself. it's not about not knowing how to deal with the girls smiling on the covers of magazines. it's about not knowing how to deal with life, itself. with your existence.
nothing will ever be enough to your eating disorder. only your death.
you deserve help. you deserve feeling alive. you deserve to pet your animals and go for a walk and read good books and make connections and friendships and, oh my God, you deserve more than being stuck in this hell! this is not easy, i know. you reach a point where you feel you have absolutely nothing to lose. you just don't care.
but i do. if you ever need anything, please, please, please, contact me. you're not alone.
you're beautiful.
you're worth it.
you're more than your body, your weight, your thoughts.
you're allowed to eat.
you deserve to eat.
[TRIGGER WARNING FUCKING TRIGGER WARNING]
as someone who is currently struggling to kick my eating disorder ass, i can say that this book triggered me a lot. made me realize how fucked up i am. but it also made me feel less alone and misunderstood. marya did not enjoy writing this book. i did not enjoy reading it. because it hurts. writing and reading about it. you're dying but you're still there. you want to get better but, at the same time, you want to get worse. you want to eat and smile and just live your fucking life but, at the same time, you just want to starve till your heart stops or to throw up till blood is all you can see. maybe then you will feel clean. maybe then you feel better. the truth is: you won't. your eating disorder is lying to you. your eating disorder is KILLING you. it's not about the weight, the physical appearance , even the food, itself. it's not about not knowing how to deal with the girls smiling on the covers of magazines. it's about not knowing how to deal with life, itself. with your existence.
nothing will ever be enough to your eating disorder. only your death.
you deserve help. you deserve feeling alive. you deserve to pet your animals and go for a walk and read good books and make connections and friendships and, oh my God, you deserve more than being stuck in this hell! this is not easy, i know. you reach a point where you feel you have absolutely nothing to lose. you just don't care.
but i do. if you ever need anything, please, please, please, contact me. you're not alone.
July 18, 2008
Okay... what to say about THIS... LOL
I was expected a story about this woman's struggle with ED.
And yeah, it kind of was, but then it kind of wasn't.
Only a very small portion of the book is her actually owning up to her own personal issues & experiences. There is not very much of HER story (i.e. "I did this, I went here, I said that... etc) Not very much "I" at all.
Instead we have a book full of her being totally dissociated from the entire ED. Instead of "I" it's all "You".... "You will do this, you will say that, you will go here..."
I don't know who this "You" person is, it's definitely not ME, the reader.
And since I was buying a book advertised as a memoir, I'm expecting a lot of "I" descriptions & stories. Not a bunch of "you, you. you" bull shit.
Plus she has a very arrogant & condescending tone throughout the book. Kind of annoying too. I couldn't warm up to her story at all. Instead it's mostly her bragging about ED & all it's glories. She's so proud of herself & all victims of ED apparently. Like its some great accomplishment to nearly kill yourself through starvation. Yeah - congratulations Marya!
I was expected a story about this woman's struggle with ED.
And yeah, it kind of was, but then it kind of wasn't.
Only a very small portion of the book is her actually owning up to her own personal issues & experiences. There is not very much of HER story (i.e. "I did this, I went here, I said that... etc) Not very much "I" at all.
Instead we have a book full of her being totally dissociated from the entire ED. Instead of "I" it's all "You".... "You will do this, you will say that, you will go here..."
I don't know who this "You" person is, it's definitely not ME, the reader.
And since I was buying a book advertised as a memoir, I'm expecting a lot of "I" descriptions & stories. Not a bunch of "you, you. you" bull shit.
Plus she has a very arrogant & condescending tone throughout the book. Kind of annoying too. I couldn't warm up to her story at all. Instead it's mostly her bragging about ED & all it's glories. She's so proud of herself & all victims of ED apparently. Like its some great accomplishment to nearly kill yourself through starvation. Yeah - congratulations Marya!
December 13, 2022
I remember being dismissed from school. Freshman year. THAT GROUP of girls taunting me and spreading rumours because I knew no one at that school and “the boys” were actually really nice”.
Oohh daddy’s show car is in the parking lot. Wait why is mom driving daddy’s fancy car?
Mom isn’t driving dad’s car. Get in the back. I hear you walk the neighborhood every night. Yes? How much have you lost? Umm what? If you can’t tell me right now that you are going to eat and stop this shit I’m taking you straight to the hospital, you understand me? Ok
I was 5’0” 105lbs. And I had no plans to stop. And what made it even more pitiful? Looking back now? I was smaller, I was sweeter, I was prettier and I wasn’t able to see it because I was their bait.
Oohh daddy’s show car is in the parking lot. Wait why is mom driving daddy’s fancy car?
Mom isn’t driving dad’s car. Get in the back. I hear you walk the neighborhood every night. Yes? How much have you lost? Umm what? If you can’t tell me right now that you are going to eat and stop this shit I’m taking you straight to the hospital, you understand me? Ok
I was 5’0” 105lbs. And I had no plans to stop. And what made it even more pitiful? Looking back now? I was smaller, I was sweeter, I was prettier and I wasn’t able to see it because I was their bait.
September 22, 2019
What is it about this book that's so terribly hard to read?
Marya's story has never been told so honestly, so unashamedly, never shying away from the details, never trying to blame or be obtuse or narrow-minded, never pretending this is anything more than the raw, unvarnished truth.
What really got me was the sheer amount of work she's put into this book. I have never seen so much research being put into a memoir, a genre that is infamous for being extemporaneous and vain. Wasted is anything but.
Marya may not have all the answers, but unlike so many other memoirists, she does not back away from science with her palms up in surrender, saying, how does it matter, there's no use anyway, it's already happened, so who cares? She is not resigned or compliant. She does not whine or complain.
Instead, she puts so much work into this story, so much understanding and patience and love and care, it brings life to an otherwise frigid plot. Her consideration for herself makes everything so much more bearable.
Her prose, of course, is nothing short of stunning. The narrative shifts seamlessly between tenses, POVs, styles, story, chronology. It blurs all the lines of traditional novel-writing and leaves the reader breathless, in the true sense of the word: so horrified, so shocked, you can't help but slam the book shut as if the words will leave you if you don't look at them. That's a lie. The details never leave you. The details will never leave me.
Marya writes as though there is no difference between the plot and the metaphor, and it makes all the difference. Prose in novels can easily get old, but there is no distinct 'prose' here, no distinct 'story'. Everything is just one huge terrifying blur designed to take your breath away. And it does. My God, it does.
There is so much philosophy in this book- not just on eating disorders, but on our lives as a whole- so many ideas I have to mull on. I absolutely loved her distinction between anorexia and bulimia, and how that relates to the culture we live in. I think I'll be doing a reread pretty soon so I can digest it a little more coherently.
Is it strange that this book reminded me so much of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho?
In both, you read horror as you've never known before.
In both, you find yourself questioning just how human can get away with such terrible things, how you can possibly ignore a long-drawn-out suicide of the soul when it's happening right beside you.
Patrick says he slit a child's throat in full sunlight in a zoo, Marya says her skin turned grey, only her knuckles touched in her hands, she claims she grew fur! And no one appears to notice in the least.
I like to think that I would have noticed, I would have done something if I'd known her. But inside, I don't think I would have. Or I don't think I would have pressed if she said she wanted alone. And there is nothing sadder than this.
And in both books, there is such an immense despair underneath the horror, you don't even want to get through it, such a horrifying pain, and you can look into a mirror and see an echo of this pain in yourself, you can relate. You feel empathy. Not sympathy. Empathy. You feel empathy for psychopaths and anorectics. And it is terrifying.
I cannot help but hate Marya for leaving us with no End, no happily ever after. I want her to tell me she's better now, maybe not good, but better. I want her to tell me that she's not obsessed with thinness anymore, that the body-positive movement has done her good. I want her to give me more hope. She doesn't. I understand it, and I respect that- not many writers would have been brave enough to tell the truth till the very end- and I respect her courage in that. And it reminds me of something she said at the very start, that no one was going to save you but yourself, that no one can give me this hope I'm craving but myself.
. . .
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Marya's story has never been told so honestly, so unashamedly, never shying away from the details, never trying to blame or be obtuse or narrow-minded, never pretending this is anything more than the raw, unvarnished truth.
What really got me was the sheer amount of work she's put into this book. I have never seen so much research being put into a memoir, a genre that is infamous for being extemporaneous and vain. Wasted is anything but.
Marya may not have all the answers, but unlike so many other memoirists, she does not back away from science with her palms up in surrender, saying, how does it matter, there's no use anyway, it's already happened, so who cares? She is not resigned or compliant. She does not whine or complain.
Instead, she puts so much work into this story, so much understanding and patience and love and care, it brings life to an otherwise frigid plot. Her consideration for herself makes everything so much more bearable.
Her prose, of course, is nothing short of stunning. The narrative shifts seamlessly between tenses, POVs, styles, story, chronology. It blurs all the lines of traditional novel-writing and leaves the reader breathless, in the true sense of the word: so horrified, so shocked, you can't help but slam the book shut as if the words will leave you if you don't look at them. That's a lie. The details never leave you. The details will never leave me.
Marya writes as though there is no difference between the plot and the metaphor, and it makes all the difference. Prose in novels can easily get old, but there is no distinct 'prose' here, no distinct 'story'. Everything is just one huge terrifying blur designed to take your breath away. And it does. My God, it does.
There is so much philosophy in this book- not just on eating disorders, but on our lives as a whole- so many ideas I have to mull on. I absolutely loved her distinction between anorexia and bulimia, and how that relates to the culture we live in. I think I'll be doing a reread pretty soon so I can digest it a little more coherently.
Is it strange that this book reminded me so much of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho?
In both, you read horror as you've never known before.
In both, you find yourself questioning just how human can get away with such terrible things, how you can possibly ignore a long-drawn-out suicide of the soul when it's happening right beside you.
Patrick says he slit a child's throat in full sunlight in a zoo, Marya says her skin turned grey, only her knuckles touched in her hands, she claims she grew fur! And no one appears to notice in the least.
I like to think that I would have noticed, I would have done something if I'd known her. But inside, I don't think I would have. Or I don't think I would have pressed if she said she wanted alone. And there is nothing sadder than this.
And in both books, there is such an immense despair underneath the horror, you don't even want to get through it, such a horrifying pain, and you can look into a mirror and see an echo of this pain in yourself, you can relate. You feel empathy. Not sympathy. Empathy. You feel empathy for psychopaths and anorectics. And it is terrifying.
I cannot help but hate Marya for leaving us with no End, no happily ever after. I want her to tell me she's better now, maybe not good, but better. I want her to tell me that she's not obsessed with thinness anymore, that the body-positive movement has done her good. I want her to give me more hope. She doesn't. I understand it, and I respect that- not many writers would have been brave enough to tell the truth till the very end- and I respect her courage in that. And it reminds me of something she said at the very start, that no one was going to save you but yourself, that no one can give me this hope I'm craving but myself.
. . .
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December 26, 2022
holy fuck.
marya hornbacher wrote this book when she was twenty-three, a mere three or four years after the last of the events it describes. every time i remember that, i’m staggered. because everything about this book, from the cutting and evocative prose, to the expert control of the flow of the narrative and the moments on which the camera lingers or skims over, to the starkly honest and no-bullshit voice with which hornbacher describes the horrific experiences she had at the hands of her disorder, speaks to a jawdroppingly refined skill and a remarkably clear-eyed ability to understand herself and the world.
reviews mention hornbacher’s lack of self-pity. that wording sets my teeth on edge a little, because i think any person who has had to live with lifelong mental or physical illness has earned a little self-pity. still, i have to agree with said reviews; i think it’s less a conscious avoidance of self-pity, though, and more a conscious striving for the truest way to tell her story, as harshly-bleakly-honestly as she can. (hornbacher is a poet, too [i think], and it shows in the profound clarity with which she tells her own story and the careful crafting of each sentence itself.) i think it also has something to do with, as she says: “being sick gets singularly boring after a while.” at some point the enticing romance of destroying yourself turns into exhaustion, which turns into frustration, which, maybe, turns into recovery.
i really don't know what to say about this book. i marvel at it on a prose level; i marvel at it as a memoir. i'm reluctant to say i "recommend" it, because it's a very difficult book to read; hornbacher threw herself wholly into her illness for fourteen years, and even the recollection on paper is painful to witness. and i definitely wouldn't recommend reading it if eating disorders are a triggering topic, because the level of detail here is razor-sharp. but i'll say this: i'm in awe of it. this copy includes a follow-up afterword written in 2014, and it came very close to making me cry, and i don't often cry when reading. one of the best books i've read this year, 100%.
February 18, 1993. I am given a week to live.
Four years (approximately 169 weeks, 1,183 days, 28,392 hours) pass.
March 11, 1997. I am alive.
marya hornbacher wrote this book when she was twenty-three, a mere three or four years after the last of the events it describes. every time i remember that, i’m staggered. because everything about this book, from the cutting and evocative prose, to the expert control of the flow of the narrative and the moments on which the camera lingers or skims over, to the starkly honest and no-bullshit voice with which hornbacher describes the horrific experiences she had at the hands of her disorder, speaks to a jawdroppingly refined skill and a remarkably clear-eyed ability to understand herself and the world.
I have an eating disorder, no question about it. It and I live in an uncomfortable state of mutual antagonism. That is, to me, a far cry better than once upon a time, when it and I shared a bed, a brain, a body, when my sense of worth was entirely contingent upon my ability to starve. A strange equation, and an altogether too-common belief: One’s worth is exponentially increased with one’s incremental disappearance.
reviews mention hornbacher’s lack of self-pity. that wording sets my teeth on edge a little, because i think any person who has had to live with lifelong mental or physical illness has earned a little self-pity. still, i have to agree with said reviews; i think it’s less a conscious avoidance of self-pity, though, and more a conscious striving for the truest way to tell her story, as harshly-bleakly-honestly as she can. (hornbacher is a poet, too [i think], and it shows in the profound clarity with which she tells her own story and the careful crafting of each sentence itself.) i think it also has something to do with, as she says: “being sick gets singularly boring after a while.” at some point the enticing romance of destroying yourself turns into exhaustion, which turns into frustration, which, maybe, turns into recovery.
I know for a fact that sickness is easier. But health is more interesting.
i really don't know what to say about this book. i marvel at it on a prose level; i marvel at it as a memoir. i'm reluctant to say i "recommend" it, because it's a very difficult book to read; hornbacher threw herself wholly into her illness for fourteen years, and even the recollection on paper is painful to witness. and i definitely wouldn't recommend reading it if eating disorders are a triggering topic, because the level of detail here is razor-sharp. but i'll say this: i'm in awe of it. this copy includes a follow-up afterword written in 2014, and it came very close to making me cry, and i don't often cry when reading. one of the best books i've read this year, 100%.
It is in your nature to heal. The lines you've fed yourself and been fed about your tragic self-destructive nature are your invention. It is in your nature not to careen toward your own death, but to persist in your own life.
January 11, 2013
It's difficult to sum up my thoughts on Wasted, seeing as I'm no literary buff.
There were a lot of things that bothered me about this novel. Hornbacher refers to sufferers of eating disorders as exclusively female, opting for 'she' in her analogies. She presents erroneous references to behaviors such as 'cruising' (she stated it was a precursor to gastric rupture, if that was the case I would have died many times and many years over). The book was full of ponderings and generalisations regarding anorexia and bulimia. Oftentimes it took an almost educational tone, out of place with the personal account. Grammatically, the read was very jumpy. Tenses changed at random, the story read in circles and the plot went nowhere in particular for the vast majority of the text. But it read exactly how experiencing an eating disorder *feels*, and in that it did its office. Despite its flaws, even ones that should have made me unable to identify with Hornbacher's experience, Wasted hit uncomfortably close to home and I read it in one rapt sitting. The author's crisscrossed thoughts may as well have been my own.
For better or for worse, this book takes you there. If it interests you by premise and you can handle the subject matter, give it a chance.
There were a lot of things that bothered me about this novel. Hornbacher refers to sufferers of eating disorders as exclusively female, opting for 'she' in her analogies. She presents erroneous references to behaviors such as 'cruising' (she stated it was a precursor to gastric rupture, if that was the case I would have died many times and many years over). The book was full of ponderings and generalisations regarding anorexia and bulimia. Oftentimes it took an almost educational tone, out of place with the personal account. Grammatically, the read was very jumpy. Tenses changed at random, the story read in circles and the plot went nowhere in particular for the vast majority of the text. But it read exactly how experiencing an eating disorder *feels*, and in that it did its office. Despite its flaws, even ones that should have made me unable to identify with Hornbacher's experience, Wasted hit uncomfortably close to home and I read it in one rapt sitting. The author's crisscrossed thoughts may as well have been my own.
For better or for worse, this book takes you there. If it interests you by premise and you can handle the subject matter, give it a chance.
April 30, 2019
This was a really beautiful and heartbreaking memoir of a troubled life. It's ostensibly about an eating disorder, but it seemed to me that it's about a long suicide. She's an excellent writer and you feel like you are part of the story--not necessarily rooting for her, but you begin to understand what it might feel like to slowly deprive yourself of sustenance and let yourself die. I hope she's better now
January 3, 2009
Emotionally honest.
Made me feel things I didn't really want to feel.
She says the same thing as Neil does at the end of The Game. You just have to live with who you were and are.
Quotes:
"the realizations of how we have failed to become ourselves, how afraid we were and are, and how we must start over from scratch, no matter how great that fear"
"All of us carry around countless bags of dusty old knickknacks dated from childhood: collected resentments, long lists of wounds of greater or lesser significance, glorified memories, absolute certainties that later turn our to be wrong. Humans are emotional pack rats. These bags define us."
"I as many young women do, honest-to-goodness believed that once I Just Lost a Few Pounds, somehow I would suddenly 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."
"When you believe that you are not worthwhile in and of yourself, in the back of your mind you also begin to believe that life is not worthwhile in and of itself."
"And as I would do for years to come, I got angry at the people who loved me the most and therefore pulled no punches. I wanted to be coddled. I wanted someone to say, Oh, poor baby, everything will be okay we'll make it better. I did not want someone to say, This is bullshit. No on wants to hear the truth about themselves. Lora was telling the truth, and I moved out."
"I think this assumption of powerlessness is the most dangerous thing an anoretic can hear. It grants license, exoneration. I likes siting back in my chair, chain-smoking, sighing with relief and thinking: This is beyond my control. The mind lifts its hands from the wheel and says: I hand this over to a higher power. God, don't let me crash."
"Life seemed rather daunting. It seems so to me even now. Life seemed like too long a time to have to stick around, a huge span of years through which one would be required to tap-dance and smile and be Great! and be Happy! and be Amazing! and Precocious! I was tired of life by the time I was sixteen. I was tired of being too much ,too intense, too manic. I was tired of people, and I was incredibly tired of myself. I wanted to do whatever Amazing Thing I was expected to do - it might be pointed out that these were my expectations, mine alone - and be done with it. Go to sleep."
"A family trying very hard to understand, a girl trying very hard to die. The charts make me shake my head in disbelief that the family could be so obtuse, that the girl could be so insensitive, so wrapped up in her own little world, that she could be so blind to the ramifications of her own behavior."
"I turn the pages, watch the weight rise and fall, listen through a din of years to the pleading, wheedling, delusional, lying voice of this girl. Because, in these charts, even I can see that the girl is lying. And that she will fall again. And again."
"The hospital had sparked in me an infantile desire to dodge the rules, to gleefully watch the Very Caring faces tighten and whiten with irritation at their own impotence, at your uncanny ability to trip them, force their hand, fuck them up. You do not notice that this is, pure and simple, a bunch of crap, and you are still, as ever, fucking yourself up, not them. You let yourself believe that you are really at battle with Them, because it's easier. You have escaped Them, a fugitive running, and you are rather pleased with the discovery that you are a very good liar."
"Oh there is no use in loving the dying.
I have tried.
I have tried but you can't,
you just can't guard the dead.
You are the watchman and you
can't keep the gate shut."
"I know you don;'t usually give hugs but I was wondering maybe if I could give you a hug, you don't have to hug back or anything, but I thought maybe since you've been here a while and you haven't had any hugs at all in like weeks maybe you need a hug."
"Why am I pouring this down the sink? What does this prove?"
"It does not hit you until later. The fact that you were essentially dead does not register until you begin to come alive. Frostbite does not hurt until it starts to thaw. First it is numb. Then the shock of pain rips through the body. And then, every winter after, it aches."
"You have to believe, or at least pretend you believe until you really believe it, that you are strong enough to take life face on."
"Always, there is an odd distance between you and the people you love and the people you meet, a barrier, thing as the glass of a mirror. You never come all the way out of the mirror; you stand, for the rest of your life, with one foot in this world and one in another, where everything is upside down and backward and sad."
Made me feel things I didn't really want to feel.
She says the same thing as Neil does at the end of The Game. You just have to live with who you were and are.
Quotes:
"the realizations of how we have failed to become ourselves, how afraid we were and are, and how we must start over from scratch, no matter how great that fear"
"All of us carry around countless bags of dusty old knickknacks dated from childhood: collected resentments, long lists of wounds of greater or lesser significance, glorified memories, absolute certainties that later turn our to be wrong. Humans are emotional pack rats. These bags define us."
"I as many young women do, honest-to-goodness believed that once I Just Lost a Few Pounds, somehow I would suddenly 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."
"When you believe that you are not worthwhile in and of yourself, in the back of your mind you also begin to believe that life is not worthwhile in and of itself."
"And as I would do for years to come, I got angry at the people who loved me the most and therefore pulled no punches. I wanted to be coddled. I wanted someone to say, Oh, poor baby, everything will be okay we'll make it better. I did not want someone to say, This is bullshit. No on wants to hear the truth about themselves. Lora was telling the truth, and I moved out."
"I think this assumption of powerlessness is the most dangerous thing an anoretic can hear. It grants license, exoneration. I likes siting back in my chair, chain-smoking, sighing with relief and thinking: This is beyond my control. The mind lifts its hands from the wheel and says: I hand this over to a higher power. God, don't let me crash."
"Life seemed rather daunting. It seems so to me even now. Life seemed like too long a time to have to stick around, a huge span of years through which one would be required to tap-dance and smile and be Great! and be Happy! and be Amazing! and Precocious! I was tired of life by the time I was sixteen. I was tired of being too much ,too intense, too manic. I was tired of people, and I was incredibly tired of myself. I wanted to do whatever Amazing Thing I was expected to do - it might be pointed out that these were my expectations, mine alone - and be done with it. Go to sleep."
"A family trying very hard to understand, a girl trying very hard to die. The charts make me shake my head in disbelief that the family could be so obtuse, that the girl could be so insensitive, so wrapped up in her own little world, that she could be so blind to the ramifications of her own behavior."
"I turn the pages, watch the weight rise and fall, listen through a din of years to the pleading, wheedling, delusional, lying voice of this girl. Because, in these charts, even I can see that the girl is lying. And that she will fall again. And again."
"The hospital had sparked in me an infantile desire to dodge the rules, to gleefully watch the Very Caring faces tighten and whiten with irritation at their own impotence, at your uncanny ability to trip them, force their hand, fuck them up. You do not notice that this is, pure and simple, a bunch of crap, and you are still, as ever, fucking yourself up, not them. You let yourself believe that you are really at battle with Them, because it's easier. You have escaped Them, a fugitive running, and you are rather pleased with the discovery that you are a very good liar."
"Oh there is no use in loving the dying.
I have tried.
I have tried but you can't,
you just can't guard the dead.
You are the watchman and you
can't keep the gate shut."
"I know you don;'t usually give hugs but I was wondering maybe if I could give you a hug, you don't have to hug back or anything, but I thought maybe since you've been here a while and you haven't had any hugs at all in like weeks maybe you need a hug."
"Why am I pouring this down the sink? What does this prove?"
"It does not hit you until later. The fact that you were essentially dead does not register until you begin to come alive. Frostbite does not hurt until it starts to thaw. First it is numb. Then the shock of pain rips through the body. And then, every winter after, it aches."
"You have to believe, or at least pretend you believe until you really believe it, that you are strong enough to take life face on."
"Always, there is an odd distance between you and the people you love and the people you meet, a barrier, thing as the glass of a mirror. You never come all the way out of the mirror; you stand, for the rest of your life, with one foot in this world and one in another, where everything is upside down and backward and sad."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 6, 2017
WASTED is one of those books that will have you shaking your head and mumbling to yourself, "oh my god, that is insane." As detailed in this book, eating disorders are indeed a type of mental illness. People with anorexia or bulimia struggle so hard to get better because their brains are preventing them from thinking in a normal fashion. Just as you cannot tell a person with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder to "just get over it," the same with eating disorders.
The ending of this book was rather up in the air. We get the picture that the author was still struggling a great deal. With a sense of foreboding, I Googled the author's name, fearing that she has since died. Frankly, I still don't understand how an adult human can get down to 50 pounds and live to tell the tale. However, I am happy to report that she is very much alive and now at a healthy weight and has written several other books.
The ending of this book was rather up in the air. We get the picture that the author was still struggling a great deal. With a sense of foreboding, I Googled the author's name, fearing that she has since died. Frankly, I still don't understand how an adult human can get down to 50 pounds and live to tell the tale. However, I am happy to report that she is very much alive and now at a healthy weight and has written several other books.
July 21, 2021
I don't like this book. I find it scary, bleak, depressing, and desolate--and that's why it is so important to me. When I am relapsing, I use this book for a bit of a "scared straight" effect. It never fails to remind me why I don't want to be sick anymore, no matter what the disordered part of me is saying. Her gory attention to detail reminds me how humiliating, degrading, and alienating my eating disorder is.
I recognize that for some this book has been a trigger. But I'm still glad that Hornbacher wrote it.
I recognize that for some this book has been a trigger. But I'm still glad that Hornbacher wrote it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 19, 2020
Haunting, beautiful, and honest. I loved this book. It got down deep in my bones and shook me. As someone who has recovered from ED, I know all too well what this hellish world is like. I have never read a book that explains it as well and as vividly as Marya Hornbacher. Great book!
March 23, 2017
Marya Hornbacher's Wasted, a memoir of the author's struggles with bulimia and anorexia, was March's choice for the Mad Woman's Book Club which I run on Goodreads. I was quite interested to see firsthand what coping with an eating disorder is like, particularly over such a prolonged period, having never read a book which deals with the issue.
Hornbacher begins with some startling admissions: 'I became bulimic at the age of nine, anorexic at the age of fifteen'. Her introduction is insightful; she states that she chose to write the book because, fundamentally, she disagreed with the majority of what had been written about eating disorders prior to 1998. Hornbacher writes: 'It is, at the most basic level, a bundle of deadly contradictions: a desire for power that strips you of all power. A gesture of strength that divests you of all strength... It is a grotesque mockery of cultural standards of beauty that winds up mocking no one more than you. It is a protest against cultural stereotypes of women that in the end makes you seem the weakest, the most needy and neurotic of all women. It is the thing you believe is keeping you safe, alive, contained - and in the end, of course, you find it's doing quite the opposite.' She makes clear throughout that Wasted tells of a singular experience, but does hint at its terrifying commonality: 'So I get to be the stereotype: female, white, young, middle-class. I can't tell the story for all of us.'
Hornbacher is incredibly frank, and much of her writing about eating disorders is highly psychological. She writes: 'Body and mind fall apart from each other, and it is in this fissure that an eating disorder may flourish, in the silence that surrounds this confusion that an eating disorder may fester and think.' This, however, is not a memoir written as a coping mechanism from a position retrospect; Hornbacher makes this as clear, as she also does with the way in which she hopes the publication of the book will help others in a similar position to the one she was in.
Hornbacher discusses the rigidity of the classification of eating disorders; simply because her father was not 'absent and emotionally inaccessible' and her mother 'overbearing, invasive, [and] needy', she was not deemed to come from the right family type to develop bulimia and, later, anorexia. Whilst she says that her home life was relatively ordinary for the most part, as she grows, she realises that, as an only child, she is used as a focus for her parents' own relationship issues: 'The child becomes a pawn, a bartering piece, as each parent competes to be the best, most nurturing parent, as determined by whom the child loves more. It was my job to act like I loved them both best - when the other one wasn't around.' She does detail her mother's own neuroses with eating, determined as she was to stay thin, and never eating more than half of the food on her plate.
One of the most remarkable things about Wasted is that Hornbacher was only twenty-three when it was written; it is one of the most eloquent memoirs which I have ever read. She is incredibly humble too, despite her own experiences: 'I do not have all the answers. In fact, I have precious few. I will pose more questions in this book than I can respond to. I can offer little more than my perspective, my experience of having an eating disorder.'
Wasted is a compelling memoir, and a fierce honesty has been stamped onto every single page. When describing herself as she falls into substance abuse, she says: 'I was vivacious, rebellious, obnoxious, often sick, sometimes cruel, and sometimes falling apart on the locker room floor, usually seething at something, running away from my house in the night.' This no-holds-barred approach works wonderfully within Hornbacher's book; we are simultaneously frightened and repulsed by her graphic descriptions of purging and her body, and want to read on. There is a fantastic balance between the personal and psychological. Wasted is intense and important, and a real eye-opener for those who have never experienced the disease.
Hornbacher begins with some startling admissions: 'I became bulimic at the age of nine, anorexic at the age of fifteen'. Her introduction is insightful; she states that she chose to write the book because, fundamentally, she disagreed with the majority of what had been written about eating disorders prior to 1998. Hornbacher writes: 'It is, at the most basic level, a bundle of deadly contradictions: a desire for power that strips you of all power. A gesture of strength that divests you of all strength... It is a grotesque mockery of cultural standards of beauty that winds up mocking no one more than you. It is a protest against cultural stereotypes of women that in the end makes you seem the weakest, the most needy and neurotic of all women. It is the thing you believe is keeping you safe, alive, contained - and in the end, of course, you find it's doing quite the opposite.' She makes clear throughout that Wasted tells of a singular experience, but does hint at its terrifying commonality: 'So I get to be the stereotype: female, white, young, middle-class. I can't tell the story for all of us.'
Hornbacher is incredibly frank, and much of her writing about eating disorders is highly psychological. She writes: 'Body and mind fall apart from each other, and it is in this fissure that an eating disorder may flourish, in the silence that surrounds this confusion that an eating disorder may fester and think.' This, however, is not a memoir written as a coping mechanism from a position retrospect; Hornbacher makes this as clear, as she also does with the way in which she hopes the publication of the book will help others in a similar position to the one she was in.
Hornbacher discusses the rigidity of the classification of eating disorders; simply because her father was not 'absent and emotionally inaccessible' and her mother 'overbearing, invasive, [and] needy', she was not deemed to come from the right family type to develop bulimia and, later, anorexia. Whilst she says that her home life was relatively ordinary for the most part, as she grows, she realises that, as an only child, she is used as a focus for her parents' own relationship issues: 'The child becomes a pawn, a bartering piece, as each parent competes to be the best, most nurturing parent, as determined by whom the child loves more. It was my job to act like I loved them both best - when the other one wasn't around.' She does detail her mother's own neuroses with eating, determined as she was to stay thin, and never eating more than half of the food on her plate.
One of the most remarkable things about Wasted is that Hornbacher was only twenty-three when it was written; it is one of the most eloquent memoirs which I have ever read. She is incredibly humble too, despite her own experiences: 'I do not have all the answers. In fact, I have precious few. I will pose more questions in this book than I can respond to. I can offer little more than my perspective, my experience of having an eating disorder.'
Wasted is a compelling memoir, and a fierce honesty has been stamped onto every single page. When describing herself as she falls into substance abuse, she says: 'I was vivacious, rebellious, obnoxious, often sick, sometimes cruel, and sometimes falling apart on the locker room floor, usually seething at something, running away from my house in the night.' This no-holds-barred approach works wonderfully within Hornbacher's book; we are simultaneously frightened and repulsed by her graphic descriptions of purging and her body, and want to read on. There is a fantastic balance between the personal and psychological. Wasted is intense and important, and a real eye-opener for those who have never experienced the disease.
December 25, 2020
As someone who's always had issues with food and weight, reading this memoir felt like taking a terrifying journey with Marya Hornbacher all the way down the same rabbit hole that I myself have often skirted around the edges of. While my own "food issues" (I call them that due to never having been diagnosed) are not as severe as the writer's, I find it painful to realize that there were many disordered behaviours/ideas described in this book that I (and I suspect I am not alone in this) have been doing for a large portion of my life, as if they were just second nature. Throwing up after eating, skipping meals, counting calories and macronutrients religiously, being preoccupied with thoughts of food, what to eat, how much to exercise, whether I deserve to have breakfast or lunch or dinner each day. It is difficult to even type those sentences out, as each word feels like I'm admitting something shameful and secret. That is the insidious, cruel nature of eating disorders - they make you feel like you should be humiliated, simply for existing and taking up space in this world. They make you feel as though you need to be punished for your abnormal, unhealthy devotion to thoughts about food and weight, because it's weird. In reality, over 30 million in the US alone suffer from an eating disorder, a third of which are men, so these things are actually a lot more common than people realize.
I think the writer makes a very clear effort to explain the thought processes that underlie eating disorders, which is a gargantuan task in itself as these thought processes often bend and twist to defy logic. They escape reason, they lack rationality. In spite of this, she manages to do a good job of capturing the essence of it. The details of the writer's illness are shared with honesty and self-awareness, and she maintains a detached, almost lyrical tone throughout. The writing in this is haunting and beautiful, but even so it makes no attempt to mask the true horror of what she went through and how bad things got at her worst. She also debunks some common myths and misconceptions surrounding eating disorders throughout the book, borrowing from published research and her own experiences. I commend her for choosing recovery in the end, and for being open about what a jagged process it is, how there is no magical "happy ever after" once you decide to get better. Because of how painful and vivid of a picture the memoir paints, and how jarring it is to be inside the head of someone who is so seriously mentally ill, this was definitely a difficult read and may not be for everyone.
I think the writer makes a very clear effort to explain the thought processes that underlie eating disorders, which is a gargantuan task in itself as these thought processes often bend and twist to defy logic. They escape reason, they lack rationality. In spite of this, she manages to do a good job of capturing the essence of it. The details of the writer's illness are shared with honesty and self-awareness, and she maintains a detached, almost lyrical tone throughout. The writing in this is haunting and beautiful, but even so it makes no attempt to mask the true horror of what she went through and how bad things got at her worst. She also debunks some common myths and misconceptions surrounding eating disorders throughout the book, borrowing from published research and her own experiences. I commend her for choosing recovery in the end, and for being open about what a jagged process it is, how there is no magical "happy ever after" once you decide to get better. Because of how painful and vivid of a picture the memoir paints, and how jarring it is to be inside the head of someone who is so seriously mentally ill, this was definitely a difficult read and may not be for everyone.
January 1, 2009
This book will haunt you, I promise you. I still think about it often, though I read it for the first time I think about 4 years ago. The author chronicles her struggle with anorexia and bulimia (which she calls a combined disorder of "bulimarexia") but her language is captivating. It is also apparent that Marya has done her research; as she narrates her own experience she also includes passages from research on anorexia and bulimia to help show how she came to be afflicted and where she fits into the scheme of the disorder. As you read the book you will be by turns morbidly fascinated and repulsed.
I often think about her description of herself when she estimates that she weighed somewhere int he 40-50 pound range, right before she admitted: she eats one fat-free muffin at a diner with her parents, and then cries and apologizes sincerely for eating so much. Later in the doctor's office, he tells her she needs to be admitted immediately. She declines at first, saying she has to go meet some friends. He tells her she could have a heart attack walking out of the clinic, and she examines the statement objectively, and almost without emotion, and finally accedes to being admitted. Like I said, it will haunt you.
I often think about her description of herself when she estimates that she weighed somewhere int he 40-50 pound range, right before she admitted: she eats one fat-free muffin at a diner with her parents, and then cries and apologizes sincerely for eating so much. Later in the doctor's office, he tells her she needs to be admitted immediately. She declines at first, saying she has to go meet some friends. He tells her she could have a heart attack walking out of the clinic, and she examines the statement objectively, and almost without emotion, and finally accedes to being admitted. Like I said, it will haunt you.
August 6, 2009
This book is unquestionably very well-written and fascinating, yet I struggled with how many stars to give it.
The author is, quite simply, a rather unlikable person. I hate looking at her photo on the cover, I’m glad I don’t know her, and I don’t really wish her well. This was troubling to me because it seems one should like (or at least have empathy for) the character one is reading about, particularly if the book is a memoir. Should feeling empathy for the author of a memoir be a prerequisite for a 4- or 5-star rating?
The writing is indisputably excellent. Her childhood remembrances embody the perfect child’s voice, she shows wonderful self-awareness (except for two significant lapses toward the end) and her details and general observances are authentic and even humorous despite the subject matter.
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