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A nice memoir. Definitely saw the trauma an eating disorder can have and how chaotic it can be.
challenging dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

I have a lot of thoughts about this book. I first read it probably a decade ago, if not more. I have a deep seated love of confessional memoirs about less than glamorous topics and this fits right in that land of uncomfortable and harrowing details.

Ive never had an eating disorder but I can relate to a lot of the things she details simply by being a girl in a food and looks obsessed society. It's far too easy to fall prey to negative thinking and outside reinforcement of those negative behaviors. Women are punished for healthy behavior far too often and rewarded for being "conscientious" about their appearance, mostly relating to their weight.

She doesn't sugar-coat (a terrible analogy but I'm going with it) anything. This is not a pretty disorder. This is not glamorous. This is frightening and ugly and self-inflicted.

A powerful memoir! Marya Hornbacher's battle with both bulimia and anorexia is heartbreaking, especially since it began at such a young age.

These types of memoirs are hard to review, I think, because it feels like I'm reviewing someone else's disease. Or her life. That being said, it's a compelling and interesting view into one person's struggle.

Highly recommended for anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of eating disorders. It's not an easy read--and who would expect it to be?--but it is an honest, thorough, and unflinching look at the reality of eating disorders and the difficulties both of living with the disorders and of attempting recovery. I have yet to find a better book on the subject.
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I have always been interested in eating disorders and memoirs, so this one caught my eye. Although I found her to be very honest, the story to be heartbreaking and very real, I also found she gave too much detail about very trivial things. Also seemed to repeat a lot of the same thoughts in different words. For me the book could have been a few chapters shorter and it would have been perfect. I loved the end though, how she did not have a real "ending" for it because it is an on-going battle for her. I think that is very true to what life is like, sometimes we struggle and other times we win, it is give and take. I would recommend it though, it was a very good look into how horrible eating disorders are and I went away feeling I understand a tiny bit more on the subject then before.


This is still the seminal ED memoir, and reading it again, I can see why. I first read this when I was in college, when a friend lent it to me, and before I had developed disordered habits of my own. So at the time, this book was more of a curiosity to me. A decade later, Marya Hornbacher's story still resonates. I relate less to the experiences and fantasies she entertained as a very young person. Hornbacher is the stereotypical ED sufferer, which she acknowledges, and her childhood feels more dramatic, risky, and alienating to me. But she still complicates EDs in ways that I think are necessary, questioning conventional thought, and making a real attempt to pin down the cause and the consequences. In doing so, she still manages to take responsibility without letting the rest of the world off the hook either. After all, this is a mental issue that is very deeply rooted in a cultural issue.

This is my all-time favorite book. I have read it 6 times cover-to-cover. Powerful, witty, and the most accurately articulated account of the true madness of eating disorders.