Bookwyrm's Reviews > Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

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.