Customer Reviews

Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

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This is not a sentimental book about a girl who finds out she has an eating disorder and over comes it against all odds. It's not a feel good book in any sense of the word.

The author is aware that she she still is a prisoner to her illness but what she has done is come to terms with it; Anorexia and Bulimia are still millstones around her neck but this book is her way of dealing with this burden.

Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia by Marya Hornbacher is not an easy book to read, not because the author makes the subject she is talking about complex, rather it is a brutally honest picture into a life governed by eating, puking, starving, eating, starving, puking, a vicious in which there seems to be no escape.

The author looks carefully into her childhood, her teenage years, her adult life, her relationship with her volatile family, her own detachment from herself as a woman in a man's world.

I couldn't read this book in one sitting, I had to do it in stages, it is powerful stuff, I have an eating disorder, and I can relate to some of the thing Marya is saying, especially about how you fit your sickness to suit your life and how you learn to be devious, to hide if from those around you, how the lies you tell are lies that you want to believe and so they become the truth.

This is another book that we should give teenage girls to read because I think that it just might sway some of them from taking the road that Marya took and barely survived going down.

An incredible, disgusting, compulsive, painful, and totally addictive read about a subject most of us would rather avoid if we could.

First of all, I would like to say that I really loved Marya's very candid and real way of writing. She didn't candy-coat or tip-toe --- she told the truth. And she told it very well. My warning though is that, as someone who has struggled for a long time with an eating disorder myself, many of us with ED's have considered "Wasted" to be a how-to guide for starting/maintaining an ED. Be careful. If you are vulnerable even a little bit, please save this read for a later, more stable time in your life/recovery. I do think it is a good eye-opener for parents and other loved ones of someone battling an ED. Not only does it supply the many, many twisted and secretive symptomatic behaviors we tend to engage in, but it also gives a very honest look at the emotions and issues behind the disorder. It's not about the food, or the weight, or the size. It's just a mask for something much more severe. We've had to resort to using our bodies to communicate instead of our voices. We lost our voice somewhere along the way, and the body became our target.
I don't feel the book itself is inherently bad or dangerous or whatever. I do, however, recommend EXTREME caution and consideration before reading this. Be careful. Be wise.

I have read this book a few times and had mixed reactions. I have been hospitalized twice for anorexia at the same hospital as Marya went to, and her experiences are brutally honest and true-to-life. Anyone wanting to understand anorexia or bulimia ought to read this book. Her quotes about how much she hated the bulimia episodes and how anorectics view bulimics are usually right on (although as both an anorectic and a bulimic, I have found quite a few exceptions to her "rule." I still suffer greatly from the two disorders, and it is refreshing to get someone's voice out there.

One CAUTION, however: If you suffer from an eating disorder, be very careful in reading this book. I have needed to put it down quite a few times because it was too intense for me, and I have been triggered by it quite a few times. But if you want to know what is going on inside your loved one's head, remember that everyone is different so do not assume he/she feels like Marya does, but also bear in mind that Marya has been through a lot of the same stuff that many people with ED's go through.

Hornbacher has a great deal of insight into the causes of eating disorders. The beginning of her book is especially powerful, as she comments on the futility of a condition that "starts off as a mockery of society's standards and ends up mocking no one more than you". At times, she took my breath away with the accuracy of her succinct statements about anorexia.

Unfortunately, this book does much more than discuss the underlying issues of eating disorders. In painstaking, almost obsessive detail, Hornbacher describes her horrible battle with anorexia and bulimia. She is extreme in everything she does. When bulimic, she regurgitates such a large volume of food that it plugs her family's sewer system. When anorexic, she claims that she reached a shocking low of 52 pounds. The attention that Hornbacher devotes to reporting the gruesome details of her disease seems an indication that her issues with food are far from over. Especially disturbing is her lengthy, almost worshipful description of her emaciated body during her anorexic phase. We hear about the bones in her chest, her sunken cheeks, her stick-like legs, the gap between her thighs. And is it my imagination, or is there a fiendish pleasure in the description?

I was not surprised to read in the Amazon interview with Hornbacher that she is now relapsing. For anyone who is interested, the interview is available on this page, under "Amazon.com Articles". In the interview, Hornbacher's struggles with her eating disorder mindset are more apparent than ever. She even gets into an argument with the woman interviewing her, because the woman comments that she looks "fine". Hornbacher snaps back, "I'm totally underweight. I'm, like, 30 pounds underweight". After all these years, she still needs to let everyone know the exact number of pounds she is lacking.

Marya Hornbacher is a perceptive, intelligent woman, who has a lot to say about what it is like to have an eating disorder. What she is lacking is the genuine desire to give up her anorexic world. It is for this reason that I find her book depressing and not extremely helpful.

Most anorexics and bulimics will probably be motivated to read "Wasted". It is engrossing, and feeds the internal monster that is an eating disorder. We hear number after number; weight, height, calorie consumption, age, number of hospitalizaions... All the morbid details are there, filling our minds, satisfying our desire for the specifics of starvation.

But in the end, we are left hungry. Hornbacher is now a married woman, still glorying in the feel of emaciation. She accepts the fact that she is going to die young. There is a feeling of inevitability and hopelessness that pervades "Wasted". Hornbacher is not cured, she does not have the answers, and she does not want to let go of her status as a severe anorexic. All she knows how to do is starve.

Reading "Wasted" will leave your eating disorder feeling glutted, and your true self feeling empty. I think there is more hope than Hornbacher would have us believe. For those who would like to believe anorexia and bulimia can be overcome, I highly recommend "The Secret Language of Eating Disorders" by Peggy Claude-Pierre. "Wasted" is no more than one woman's tribute to her feats of starvation. There is so much more to life.

What many people don't realize about Eating Disorders, is that an anoretic or bulimic can't just start eating "normally" again and make everything better. An alcoholic might be able to give up drinking, but one doesn't need alcohol to live. One will DIE without food. People who develop a fear of food, or an addiction to food, will be in a lifetime of recovery.

What I loved so much about this book is the no- holds-barred way that Marya Hornbacher tells her story. She does not sugarcoat or glamorize her experience, nor does she resort to boring statistics to fill space. This is the most unbiased, graphic re-telling of an eating disorder that I have ever read. I have nothing but admiration of Ms. Hornbacher for her utmost honesty in writing this book. She does not ask the reader to take her side, nor does she ask for the reader's opinion. She just unflinchingly tells her story. And what a story it is!

This book is NOT a cure for an eating disorder. But maybe one girl will read this book and realize that it hits just a little too close to home. Maybe someone who has been struggling with an eating disorder for years will come to realize that there is someone else out there who feels all of the same empty feelings. In any case, this book can save lives. I cried my eyes out reading Wasted and I will admit that it is very difficult to get through (especially if you are recovering from, or currently dealing with an eating disorder.) I feel confident saying, however, that this is the most worthwhile book I've read in a long time and hands down, the best that I have ever read on eating disorders.

Many people who have had an eating disorder will know just how addictive reading about other people's eating disorders can become. When I was ill I thought the Eating Disorders Newsletters my mother used to get deserved to be World Classics. These days, in the advent of Wasted, Lifesize and re-issue and re-issue of The Best Little Girl in the World, anorexics have the best ready-made reading list they could ever hope for. The first two are even well written - anorexia porn at its very best!

Hornbacher may believe that she wrote this work for purely altruistic reasons but I find this unconvincing. To truly want to recover is admirable but it always involves a sense of loss. Might as well record the glory and squalour of the past, just in case no one notices you should you become normal.

I identified with much that was written in this book - only I was much much iller, obviously, I won't be outdone! - but in a way I find it somewhat pointless. I don't believe eating disorder sufferers have that great a need to know someone else feels the way they do. There is enough information out there already. It's nice to be seduced by bones and agony but remember the laxative stains and pointless rows about yoghurt brands. It's just not that intense or glamourous and you know it.

I first read Wasted when I was 18 years old and in the throes of an eating disorder myself. I will admit that yes, I was looking to find "tips" or "tricks" to use in my disorder, and at first, it seemed that I had found them. (Many a negative review has been written about this book for this reason.) However, as you continue reading this book, any ideas you have about anorexia or bulimia being glamourous and a means of self-control are erased. I have never before read anything so raw, real, and honest as this book. Hornbacher does not bother "sugar coating" eating disorders by avoiding topics such as, health problems caused by starvation or the toll they take on your life personally and professionally.
Sure, a young or impressionable reader could use the author's story as inspiration for her own illness if she so desired. However, if you choose to do this, be prepared to encounter some of the consequences Hornbacher did. The title, "Wasted", did not simply mean that she looked like she was wasting away. She lost jobs, friends, relationships with family, and years of her life. The book truly lays the entire eating disorder process out in front of you. She basically says, "here's how I starved myself, binged, purged, and exercised my way to thinness. And here's how I wasted my youth spending time in hospitals and doing drugs. And here's how I now have heart problems, can never have children, and I screwed up my digestive system permanently. My body will never work the way it should."
To those readers looking for inspiration, "Wasted" will give you more than you bargained for. You will learn tricks, but you will also be inspired to recover as quickly as possible in order to avoid a life marred down by eating disorders that ultimately take over your entire life.
Since I first read this book several years ago, I have come a long way in my struggle with anorexia and bulimia. Now, when I pick it up, I am still looking for inspiration--I read it to inspire me to stay in recovery to avoid returning to a life like Hornbacher's. I recommend this book to almost anyone--from current sufferers of eating disorders to recovered sufferers who want to be reminded of the hellish road they had to travel to get better, to people who wish to better understand a loved one with anorexia or bulimia.

I am a psychologist who has worked at a college counseling center for the past 15 years. While I was reading this book, the question that kept going through my mind was "how could this happen?" Author Marya Hornbacher, who writes of her history of both anorexia and bulimia, insists that her experience was not particularly "unusual," saying that she was "sicker than some, not as sick as others." Whereas the latter might be the case, I certainly did find many aspects of Hornbacher's illness to be unusual, starting with her development of bulimia at an extremely young age (nine). Even more surprising, however, was that when at age 15, Hornbacher added starvation to her disordered eating repertoire, eventually becoming anoretic, NO ONE noticed--not her parents, not her friends (many of whom were eating disordered themselves), not even the health care professionals at the boarding school that Hornbacher was attending (who lets a 15 year old with a history of alcohol and drug abuse go away on her own to boarding school anyway?).

And that is just the beginning of Hornbacher's definitely atypical journey. Eventually, she does get treatment, although she has to leave the treatment center prematurely when her insurance runs out (which unfortunately is NOT atypical). Inexplicably--again--Hornbacher's parents then let her move halfway across the country to stay with friends of the family and finish high school, and while there--not surprisingly--Hornbacher relapses. Once again, however, I was stunned how those around Hornbacher were oblivious; even the health/mental health professionals in change of her care were easily fooled to believe that she was following her treatment plan as prescribed despite her obviously radical weight loss. An even more egregious error occurred several years later, when Hornbacher went away to college in Washington, DC, supposedly "recovered" from her eating disorder after several additional hospitalizations: she again became severely anoretic, but a doctor who recorded her weight as 69 lbs. found nothing to be wrong and sent her on her way. The result of this was that Hornbacher reached a low of 52 pounds before finally receiving emergency treatment.

I have to remind myself that Hornbacher's illness took place in the late 1980s/early 1990s, almost 20 years ago, and that things have changed a lot since then. I certainly know that my own counseling office (which works closely with health services, part of the same department) would be extremely concerned about ANY student weighing under 100 lbs., and for anything much less than that, we would be figuring out how to get that student out of school and into inpatient treatment. But this is just said to illustrate that Hornbacher's situation IS an extreme case; yes, eating disorders are common, but situations such as her own are not. Furthermore, Hornbacher's experience is not fully explained by her eating disorders diagnosis alone: as the book continues, she mentions several times that she is manic, and she focuses in depth on her Bipolar Diagnosis in her follow-up memoir, Madness.

Overall, I felt that this book was a worthwhile read, as it was a frank, no-holds-barred look at a subject that probably still isn't openly addressed as it needs to be. I would definitely recommend the book to therapists, family members of those with eating disorders, and others who are likely to come in contact with those experiencing eating disorders, such as professors/other college staff members. However, I would be hesitant to recommend this book to those who actually have or have had an eating disorder. Eating disorders are notoriously competitive, and although Hornbacher states that she wants to help others like herself, she may actually be doing them a disservice (she herself admits to relapsing after this book was released).

Having suffered from a mild eating disorder from the ages of 12-23, and then severe bulimia and anorexia that continues to haunt every meal and bite of every day, I've held this book so tightly to my soul as evidence, and as comfort, that I'm not crazy nor am I alone. Marya is an exceptional writer and an exceptional woman. She holds nothing back, not even the grittiest of details about her lifelong struggles with both her eating disorder and her Self.

She exposes the fact that "starvation is not a joke," that an eating disorder isn't just a decision not to eat, but an honest-to-God phobia of food and of getting fat. She discusses candidly that after eating a meal, you honestly think you feel your butt expanding; the compulsion to stand there and stare at your body in the mirror and make sure your knees don't touch each other; the constant feeling of your hip and shoulder bones and your tail bone to make sure there isn't suddenly a massive layer of blubber covering them. That you stare in the mirror and look at the wrong thing- instead of seeing the picture, you see the negative space. Instead of seeing the ribs and hip bones jutting out, you look at where they DON'T protrude, and irrationally see that as proof that you're a fat, disgusting, unworthy pig.

She proves that there is nothing romantic about an eating disorder, nothing beautiful about wasting away. She tells in horrifying accuracy the devastating effects of taking ipecac after a binge, of taking boxes of laxatives at a time. How the brain obsesses night and day over food when it has been denied nourishment for so long. The desperate search for a "safe" food to quell that hunger inside- lots celery covered in obscene amounts of mustard, a bowl of peas eaten one pea at a time with a fork. The bizarre and rather arbitrary categorization of what foods are "safe," and what is not. The terror of being in a kitchen that has food, lots of food, hidden behind cabinet doors, knowing you cannot be trusted alone in there. The horrid panic after eating even just two bowls of cereal, the need to throw up, and the tremendous relief when you're done. The endless nights of insomnia caused by your body's hunger, the muscle cramps as your body eats away at itself in the throes of starvation. And the unnatural way you think of your body as this thing, this appendage that you have, as a belonging but not part of You which is what allows you to treat it so miserably.

This book is not pretty, but it's incredibly accurate. I've read it more than ten times, I've got notes written in the margins on at least 60 pages. Not only did she tell her story, but she's done her research on eating disorders, adding in factual information where it is pertinent. I'd recommend it for anyone who is going through anorexia or bulimia themselves, but more so for their loved ones trying to understand what's going on in the head of the eating disordered person. I made my boyfriend read it, and he now understands why I'll suddenly panic over the idea eating at a restaurant, and why I keep no food in my house. I'd even go so far as to say it's required reading for any therapist or doctor who deals with eating disordered patients.

I've heard rumors that Marya is coming out with a new book soon, a work of fiction, and I can't wait to read it.

This book has become the "Bible" for many of those with eating disorders. Many share in groups and on eating disorder websites how they use this book as to motivation get sicker or to stay ill. It is full of tips on not only how to engage in ED behaviors but also how to hide that behavior from not only loved ones but professionals trying to help. The fact that she was not recovered when she wrote this book means it was written from a very unhealthy perspective.

My personal opinion is that this book was an ode to her eating disorder and was written at a point where she was still very mentally ill and still very much in love with her eating disorder. Like many, I read this book when I was very ill, and while I did not learn any new "tricks" from it I devoured every word because it fed my mental illness.

Having re-evaluated it as someone fully recovered from an ed I honestly believe that this book serves no other purpose other than to brag about how "sick" and non-compliant she was, very much the MO of anyone who is still very mentally ill and in the depths of an eating disorder.

I also think that if we could be a fly on the wall (an emotionally healthy fly on the wall) that most would feel that her perception of the truth and what was reality are not exact matches. When someone is so entrenched in their illness it is easy to perceive anyone who tries to pull them out of it as abusive in one form or another. I believe had she written this book in a healthier state of mind her view and understanding of certain events and conversations would probably be very different.

Honestly, this is a book I wish would disappear. I have never known a professional or anyone who was fully recovered who would recommend this book to anyone.