Insatiable: A Young Mother's Struggle with Anorexia [Hardcover]

Erica Rivera (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 6, 2009

A provocative and engrossing memoir of a young mother's spiral into eating disorders and exercise addiction, and her subsequent struggle to reclaim control of her life.

At twenty-four, Erica Rivera appeared to have it all: a B.A., two daughters, a successful husband, a house in the suburbs-and a great body. But under the surface, Erica was struggling with an addiction. She developed a self- destructive obsession with dieting, bingeing, purging, exercising, and, ultimately, anorexia. It wasn't until her very young daughters began to imitate her actions that she decided to get help-and to trace her disordered eating and body-image patterns across three generations of women in her family.

Insatiable is the raw, candid, and ultimately uplifting story of one woman's plunge into the depths of addiction and her fragile fight to climb back out. Getting to the root of her own problems helped her show her own daughters where happiness truly lies: in loving oneself. Though her road to recovery has not been easy, Erica Rivera is reassuring in her honesty-and inspirational in her triumph.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Erica Rivera is an MFA candidate in creative writing. She has also worked as a counselor in a residential treatment center for adolescents.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Hardcover (October 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425229874
• ISBN-13: 978-0425229873
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,024,602 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Erica Rivera's first book, INSATIABLE: A Young Mother's Struggle With Anorexia, is available now in bookstores everywhere! INSATIABLE has been featured on Fox Morning News, Showcase Minnesota, and was recently reviewed in the Star Tribune.

In addition to several guest columns for the Star Tribune, Rivera's writing has been featured in "Writers' Journal", "Moon Journal", and LaChance Publishing's "Voices of Breast Cancer" anthology and the "Let Them Eat Crepes" anthology.

Rivera received her B.A. in Psychology and Spanish at Macalester College in 2001. After graduation, she worked as a counselor in a residential treatment center for adolescents.

Rivera is a long-distance runner with a marathon PR of 3:14:10. She recently participated in the yoga study program at Yoga Center of Minneapolis and is an avid practitioner of both Hatha and Kundalini yoga.

Rivera is a lifelong Minnesotan, where she lives with her two daughters.

Visit her website at www.ericarivera.net to read her blog, find answers to your FAQs and see more photos!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't Bother, January 20, 2010

By 

A Reader "A Reader" (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Insatiable: A Young Mother's Struggle with Anorexia (Hardcover)

A complete waste of time. The book is boring, over-written, cliche filled, confusing, and interspersed with poorly linked personal stories. Overall, this book has very little to do with the real and honest complexities of an eating disorder (something with which I have personal experience). The author awkwardly dances around her so-called "eating disorder" which seems to indicate that she doesn't even have an eating disorder. More than anything, the author is addicted to herself and exercise, and making sure she is in the attention spotlight and that her own narcissistic needs are met at the emotional expense and hurt of innocent others, especially her young children. She obviously has way too much free time on her hands given the exorbitant amount of time she chooses to spend on exercise, eating, thinking and writing about food. Her story is so shallow, it's almost laughable! Definitely not worth the read!
(Bo-ooooring - YAWN!).

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very Disappointing, January 27, 2010

By 

Alayne (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Insatiable: A Young Mother's Struggle with Anorexia (Hardcover)

I bought this book for my 15 year old daughter who will be returning home after an extended stay at an eating disorder facility in Arizona. Thank goodness I read the book before I gave it to my daughter. This book would be of no benefit whatsoever for my recovering daughter. I can't imagine how it would be helpful to anyone struggling or recovering from an eating disorder, at least the struggle my daughter has endured with anorexia and bulimia. I felt like I was reading someone's personal diary and some of the sexual content was, in my opinion, inappropriate and not necessary. My daughter would not be able to relate to the author's exercise addiction and her bizarre relationships with food and men. The story was difficult to follow and I didn't end up caring much about the author. I returned the book to the store. I cannot recommend this book to anyone struggling with an eating disorder.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Long Regurgitation of Symptoms, November 25, 2009

By 

Elaina - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Insatiable: A Young Mother's Struggle with Anorexia (Hardcover)

I bought this book after reading glowing reviews of it but was sorely disappointed. Having struggled with anorexia and bulimia myself, and having worked on my own memoir, I applaud the author for being able to get this all down on paper in a vivid and coherent way.

However, the book has some serious drawbacks: (1) I expected fresh and crisp writing from someone working on her MFA, but the book is riddled with cliches (e.g., sucked face, popped my cherry, down the hatch, etc.); (2) it's quite long, in a protracted and drawn-out fashion; (3) her lengthiest descriptions are not about her feelings, what motivated her to develop an eating disorder or what encouraged her to recover, but rather they're about her binges, including flowery recitations of the food she ate; and (4) I find her to be a generally unsympathetic character whose true essence as a person I can't identify with and don't really care about. Instead, the figures that I feel real pity for are the innocent bystanders, her two daughters, who she neglects in her misguided pursuit of perfection.

Overall, there is some measure of good in this book. It serves as a cautionary tale about the personal and relational dangers of eating disorders, which has weight for all people but particularly young mothers and/or those with histories of eating disorders. Rivera paints a stark picture of how bleak, self-involved and uninteresting is a life obsessed with food.