Customer Reviews

Andrea's Voice: Silenced by Bulimia: Her Story and Her Mother's Journey Through Grief Toward Understanding

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Andrea's Voice is a moving tribute to an incredibly wise young woman and a family whose bond is inspiring. As someone who has been deeply affected by Andrea's struggle with an eating disorder and my own, this book both warmed my heart and broke it anew. There is so much here to be learned and reminded of regardless of whether or not one has been directly touched by an eating disorder. Doris' words, along with Andrea's, have the potential to begin a critical societal discussion about how we - as parents, siblings, partners, friends, co-workers, educators, treatment professionals, media personalities, policymakers - contribute to the thoughts that encourage disordered eating behaviors. As importantly, though, this book helps us begin to reevaluate and change our expectations and judgments of others and ourselves. In writing Andrea's Voice, Doris Smeltzer has given us incredible gifts: insight into her own journey and the gift of her daughter. Each person who reads this will be changed.

It is hard for me to describe all the feelings I had while reading Andrea's Voice. It is a beautifully written, informative and well constructed book, which I know will become an important contribution to the eating-disorder mental health community as well as to the mental health community in general. Apart from this however, the book offers a riveting and compelling personal story that is very affecting and urgently relevant in many domaines, especially family, culture, health, therapy, grief counseling, and spirituality.

As a parent with an abiding relationship with a daughter who is exactly Andrea's age, I am shaken, instructed, affirmed, scolded, awed, emboldened, and a bit terrified by this story. However, you do not need to be a parent to be affected by this book. This story will deeply affect anyone who reads it.

Andrea's writings, which are interwoven with her mother's account of her story, are truly amazing. I choke and gasp for air when I read them. How could such a young human being be capable of expressing thoughts and feelings the way she does? While Andrea's letters, journaling and poetry very poignantly evoke what it is like for a young woman to have a mental illness from the inside out, they also go way beyond this. Her writing is inspiring soul searching. Even more so however, I find Andrea's words to be spiritually inspirational. Together with her mother's impassioned grieving and soulfully evoked searching, they form one very powerful beating heart, the sound of which is a most generous and unforgettable gift for which I cannot thank them enough.

Please read this book,it will change your life.

"Andrea's Voice Silenced By Bulimia: Her Story and Her Mother's Journey Through Grief Toward Understanding" is a final legacy organized and co-written by both Andrea's mother, Doris Smeltzer, and Andrea herself in the form of her journals and papers. This compelling account tells the story of a beautiful and talented young woman who suffers, and eventually dies from, an eating disorder. "Andrea's Voice" represents a great lesson woven from painful experience. Doris Smeltzer is co-founder of the eating disorder prevention nonprofit organization, Andrea's Voice Foundation. Through the finely crafted voices and carefully chosen writings in "Andrea's Voice," her mother presents both the deep isolationism of the disordered eater, her daughter, and the close bond that still enriches her life today, when her daughter's living voice is silenced. "Andrea's Voice" is both a deeply compassionate, inspirational tribute to the life of Andrea, and a search for clues and tools to stem the outcome in others with disordered eating. "Andrea's Voice" is both a clinical and a very human look at the relationship between Andrea and her mother, shared to help others afflicted with eating disorders -- or have loved ones who are faced with such potentially dangerous health issues.

I highly recommend this book to parents of young women with eating disorders. Andrea's Voice is a deeply personal and eloquently told account of a mother's quest to bring her daughter through an eating disorder. This book offers something more than publications written by the "experts"--the books that tell parents what the best treatment is--it describes what it's actually like to confront an eating disorder, and how it affects a family. This is the real thing.

Thank you Doris for not preserving your journey with Andrea but for sharing, reaching and teaching all that you learned from her. I heard Andrea's voice when I was unable to hear my daughters'. She guided me on what I needed to do for them and told me what I needed to hear.....and I listened...for the first time...I listened ..... Thank you for your bravery and courage and inspiration. Thank you for sharing the deepest part of your soul, and thank you for trusting that we needed you to.

This has been one of the best books that I have read about Eating Disorders. The chapters are very real and Doris Smeltzer definitely does a great job in describing the emotional and underlying issues that one has when suffering from an eating disorder. A must read especially for all of the parents that have loved ones that are struggling with an Eating Disorder. This book is also a reality check for the sufferers that one can die from this. Andrea only struggled for 13 months. That is the reality of this disease. Andrea's entries separated herself from this disease, but at the same time, her journals showed how much power the bulimia had over her.
I had the opportunity of having met Doris and Tom Smeltzer. As a recovering anorexic and as someone that has been down in the dumps, I hope this book will inspire someone out there to go seek help and to realize that they are not alone in this battle.
God bless you Doris and Tom today and always, and may you continue sharing your light with others.

I highly recommend "Andrea's Voice" to anyone suffering from eating disorders and to loved ones who are dealing with an eating disordered child, parent, or friend. "Andrea's Voice" touched me more than most of the books that I have read on eating disorders because it contained actual text written by someone suffering from this horrible affliction. And, in addition, the book presented details of how a parent tries to deal with an eating disordered child. Andrea had a gift with words that enabled her to express her innermost fears and feelings in poetic language. I could not put the book down. When I finished reading "Andrea's Voice", I was very sad but also hopeful because I think the book will help many of us who suffer from eating disorders.

I love that in this book it included the jounals that Andrea wrote will she was a live. It gave me a person who that never had bulimia or has know anyone with bulimia an insite to what people that have bulimia feel and go through. The book dosen't spell out the reason of why Andrea had bulimia but it dose give you the signs that were there in Andrea's life, I think that this was because even Andrea or her parents knew why Andrea had bulimia. Over all the book was wounderful to read and it can really pull on your heart when Andrea mother Doris tells the reader of the emotions she was going through well Andrea was sick and after her death. Great book!!!!!!

Andrea's Voice is an imperative guide to the rapid growth and destruction of bulimia's effects for both the sufferer and family members involved. Doris provides a deeply introspective, and sadly poignant tale through Andrea's poetry and writing, which invites the reader into the very fears and struggle that plague bulimics on a daily basis. As a survivor of this destructive illness, I am deeply grateful for Doris' bravery to share her story, which will provide a benchmark and bridge for understanding between sufferers and their families far into the future. After reading this tale, I feel honored to know of the gift that Andrea was and the hope she will provide for the future.

Now, I'd like to start off by saying that no, I do not have an eating disorder myself, but since I was young I have had this thirst to understand eating disorders and similar issues because so few people can. One day I was looking through the ED books here at Amazon and something about Andrea's Voice stuck out to me. So, recently I got it on my Kindle, and I simply listened to the power of Doris Smeltzer's words along with Andrea's. Andrea had a gift with words, and Doris is incredibly brave to share those in tandem with her own struggle to understand the reasons for her daughter's deep pain. Thank you Doris, and thank you, Annie. Your words have a power I can't describe accurately. A must read for anyone seeking deeper understanding of eating disorders and how they pervade not just the sufferer him or herself but anyone close to the sufferer