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Wasted : A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (Paperback)

~ (Author) "It was that simple: One minute I was your average nine-year-old, shorts and a T-shirt and long brown braids, sitting in the yellow kitchen, watching..." (more)
Key Phrases: anorexic body, Lowe House, Methodist Hospital, Diet Lipton Iced Tea (more...)

4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (425 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"I fell for the great American dream, female version, hook, line, and sinker," Marya Hornbacher writes. "I, as many young women do, honest-to-God believed that once I Just Lost a Few Pounds, suddenly I would 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." Hornbacher describes in shocking detail her lifelong quest to starve herself to death, to force her short, athletic body to fade away. She remembers telling a friend, at age 4, that she was on a diet. Her bizarre tale includes not only the usual puking and starving, but also being confined to mental hospitals and growing fur (a phenomenon called lanugo, which nature imposes to keep a body from freezing to death during periods of famine). --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

YA-Eating disorders are frequently written about but rarely with such immediacy and candor. Hornbacher was only 23 years old when she wrote this book so there is no sense of her having distanced herself from the disease or its lingering effects on her. This, combined with her talent for writing, gives readers a real sense of the horror of anorexia and bulimia and their power to dominate an individual's life. The author was bulimic as a fourth grader and anorexic at age 15. She was hospitalized several times and institutionalized once. By 1993 she was attending college and working as a journalist. Her weight had dropped to 52 pounds and doctors in the emergency room gave her only a week to live. She left the hospital, decided she wanted to live, then walked back and signed herself in for treatment. This is not a quick or an easy read. Hornbacher talks about possible causes for the illnesses and describes feeling isolated, being in complete denial, and not wanting to change or fearing change, until she nearly died. Young people will connect with this compelling and authentic story.
Patricia Noonan, Prince William Public Library, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial; 1 edition (January 15, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060930934
ISBN-13: 978-0060930936
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 8.2 ounces

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (425 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #258,807 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
It was that simple: One minute I was your average nine-year-old, shorts and a T-shirt and long brown braids, sitting in the yellow kitchen, watching Brady Bunch reruns, munching on a bag of Fritos, scratching the dog with my foot. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
anorexic body

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Lowe House, Methodist Hospital, Diet Lipton Iced Tea, Late August, Union Station

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Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Citations (learn more)

This book cites 73 books:

Eating Disorders (Therapy in Practice) by Simon B.N. Thompson on page 46, and Back Matter
Minding the Body by Patricia Foster on page 109, and Back Matter
The Cult of Thinness by Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber on page 106, and Back Matter
Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts by Samuel Beckett on page 137, and page 214
Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (The New Historicism: Studies in Cultural Poetics) by Caroline Walker Bynum in Back Matter

See all 73 books this book cites

24 books cite this book:

What Should I Feed My Kids?: How to Keep Your Children Healthy by Teaching Them to Eat Right by Ronni Litz Julien on page 171, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Eating Disorders: Anatomy of a Social Epidemic by Richard Gordon in Front Matter, and page 117
Empty: A Story of Anorexia by Christie Pettit in Front Matter, and Back Matter
Running On Empty: A Diary of Anorexia and Recovery by Carrie Arnold in Back Matter
Teen Love: On Friendship by Kimberly Kirberger in Back Matter

See all 24 books citing this book

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	84% buy the item featured on this page: Wasted : A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia 4.3 out of 5 stars (425)
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	4% buy The Best Little Girl in the World 3.6 out of 5 stars (175) $6.99
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Customer Reviews

425 Reviews

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4 star:		(64)
3 star:		(28)
2 star:		(21)
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Average Customer Review

4.3 out of 5 stars (425 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wasted but still fighting, June 11, 2005

By	Kali "bengaligirl" (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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.

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53 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Please Be Careful, May 15, 2004

By A Customer

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.

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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars From a survivor of ED's, July 23, 2000

By A Customer

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.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Healthy persons need not read
Marya's story draws you in, in the same way driving by a recent car crash simultaneously captivates, horrifies and fascinates. Read more

Published 28 days ago by Marcella Van Oel

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing!
By far one of the bst books I've ever read! It was written perfectly to make you feel like you were going through the sickness with Marya. Loved it.

Published 1 month ago by Jodi Pacheco

5.0 out of 5 stars cool
It's a really cool book but I NEVER GOT IT IN THE MAIL but other than that the books awesome..

Published 2 months ago by Nicole R. Monyak

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning
This book is written by a writer. Stark, funny and insightful. I hope it gains the wide audience it deserves.

Published 2 months ago by Fiona E. Place

3.0 out of 5 stars Lacking.
This book is long and hard to read.

I picked it up after hearing raving reviews online. Read more

Published 2 months ago by J. Heng

5.0 out of 5 stars great memoir
this book is amazing. marya hornbacher's writing is beautifully descriptive and painfully honest. i've read this book 3 times, it's a must read for anyone suffering from ED. Read more

Published 4 months ago by Jamie L. Lands

5.0 out of 5 stars take it for what it is
"Wasted" is a memoir. It is not a psychology textbook or a guide to recovering from eating disorders.

Hornbacher tells her own story--no more, no less. Read more

Published 4 months ago by W.H.

4.0 out of 5 stars Frank reflections on author's experiences with anorexia and 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... Read more

Published 5 months ago by Beth Cholette

5.0 out of 5 stars BUY THIS BOOK!
Marya Hornbacher is a pure genius. This is by far my all time favorite book, eating disorder related or otherwise. Read more

Published 6 months ago by Kate Hillyard

3.0 out of 5 stars Proceed with Caution...
Im going to take a page right out of Marya Hornbacher's writing here and be honest, I don't think I will ever recommend this book to others in recovery from eating disorders,... Read more

Published 6 months ago by Caitlin

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