Customer Reviews
Powerful and real
"Wasted," is by far one of the best books I have read. No, not just a good "eating disorder/problem" book, but better than many books on numerous different topics. Marya Hornbacher is an extremely talented writer, and risks letting the reader see into her mind and soul. We see the courage this takes as her story unfolds. Trapped in the world of distorted self-image her whole life, anorexia and bulimia seem to be an answer for Marya. But through damage to her body and mind, numerous hospitalizations, lies, and more hurt, she recognizes eating disorders for the trap they are. As a 14 year old struggling with anorexia and bulimia, I found "Wasted," right on target, no holding back on the part of the author. However, this book can be triggering to people trying to recover from eating disorders, so if you think that buying "Wasted" to help a loved one through recovery is a good idea, hold off the purchase--or better yet, buy a copy for yourself and see what they could be going through.
A Long, Hard Journey...
I sat in silence for quite awhile upon finishing 'Wasted' and I'm still unable to find my voice. Marya Hornbacher's tortuous journey through bulemia and anorexia is a long, harrowing trip; for the reader, yes, but most importantly, for her. How she ever dredged up her past to find the strength to write this memoir is admirable, almost frightening, and incredibly intense. Do not start this book unless you are ready to take a long, hard, close look at a young woman struggling with an eating disorder. Things do not start out pretty, and they get no better from there.
Marya starts her tale from the beginning, as a child who suddenly finds herself compelled to throw up her afternoon snack one day. After the first time, she can't seem to stop doing it. She is only nine. We read on as she goes through an early puberty, speeding up an intense hatred of her growing body, throwing up everything she eats, throwing up lunch in the elementary school bathrooms.
We read on about her parents, their relationship with each other and with her; her growing preoccupation with food, with sex, with drugs. She wants to escape her life from her parents and does so with boarding school, where she has even more time to spend with bulimia, and then anorexia. She's hospitalized many times, sees many doctors, therapists, but can never seem to return to normal eating habits. As the years pass, she gets sicker, thinner, angrier, and upon moving to Washington D.C., she stops eating almost altogether. When she finally gets to a hospital she weighs 52 pounds and is given a week to live. Somehow, she makes it. She's alive today.
In her memoir, Marya goes into brutal detail of every binge, of every bite she does not take. This book is a difficult read, a journey into a life that seems unimaginable. There are no easy answers here, and Marya does not put the blame on anyone but herself. She writes after one hopitalization, "Did my family set it off again? Did my father's neediness and my fear of it spark relapse? My mother's distance? An article I read? A woman I saw? Not likely. What probably happened is that, faced with a number of things in my life that I didn't like, I turned to my eating disorder because I had never, ever figured out how to deal."
She was twenty-three when she wrote this, but says she feels much older. After all she'd been through, it's no wonder. This was probably an incredibly hard story to sit down and put to paper, but she found the strength to do so. Hopefully, someone may find help in this memoir if they need it. To the casual reader, the story will affect even the hardest heart.
"WASTED"
I really enjoyed this book. I have read several and this was by-far the most raw.I myself and suffering from Anorexia, and it really left me indiffernt. Many people say "it changed them" but if your at your wit's end it won't change you, rather give you somthing to relate too. I reccomend this book to anybody,maybe it would help somebody else more than I though.
