Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Andrea UrbinaBook review:In a world were women have to look thin and have the perfect body, one of the biggest affects this has on young girls and teenagers is that they develop eating disorders because they fall into the obsession of being skinny. In the book, “Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia” by Marya Hornbacher, focuses on her long-term battle against bulimia and anorexia as it started at a young age. Marya Hornbacher ,a 23 year old, who became a journalist as she attended American University, who decided to make her story public to the world. She wanted to teach and show young girls that they do not need to self-harm themselves in order to get thin or skinny. In this review, I will discuss the different components that readers can see throughout the book on how different factors contribute to eating disorders. The books over all thesis is that many people have eating disorders but it’s hard for medical professionals to properly diagnose this disorder. However, we can see that family dysfunctuality, the individual will to admit that they have a problem and lastly recognize that our nation has an obsession that feminine has to be thin are some of the factors that contribute to eating disorders.In the book, “In the book, “Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia” by Marya Hornbacher, starts off talking that as an infant and a young child she had some strange eating habits. As the years went by, once she turned 9 years old she had bulimia she would binge eat and then force herself to throw up right after that. She loved the sensation she felt of the adrenalin rushing as she ran to the bathroom just to throw up. Marya’s family was going through hard times, to deal with her pain she started to engage in sexual activities. She got pregnant at the age of 14 but had a spontaneous miscarriage in her parents’ house because she was too skinny. As she started high school and as she turned 15, she transitioned her bulimia into anorexia. In high school she has been hospitalized a few times, there were signs of her being cured but she had this obsession with being skinny or thin that she would fall back to her old habits. She has also been admitted to a few children treatment centers to help her with her disorders but sometimes the medications would not help her. She had her wisdom teeth removed and the medication she had to take would backfire, it made her throw up and she could barely eat anything. The anesthesia she received almost killed her because it was too strong for her weak heart. There was a point in her life that she felt happy and content with the way that she looked, but that quickly changed when she was barely getting and sleep and was over working. She does get married but within her marriage she still falls into her old habits and starts to lose weight in hopes that her husband can see that she’s losing weight. At the end the readers get a sense of how hard this was on her to make her story public and show the world the side effects that eating disorders have on the body and mind on young girls and women.Overall analyzing some of the topics involved in this book I can see the strong connection of how a dysfunctional family can create a negative effect on the lives of young children or teens which leads them into having bad behaviors. Also I can see the strong connection of how and obsession with being thin and our society believing that feminine need to be thin can lead many people into eating disorders because they feel “fat”. Saying this we can see at the beginning of the book we get a quick introduction of the dysfunctional family she is part of. Knowing that this book will tell the story of a young girl who has and eating disorder we can see that the battle will be between bulimia and anorexia in the need to be thin. Marya then mentions, “Eating disorders linger so long undetected, eroding the body in silence, and then they strike. The secret is out. You're dying." (p. 2). Here I believe is one of the strong points throughout the book because we can see that medical professionals misdiagnose their patients and refuse to admit that the individual has an eating disorder. Having said this we can also relate her other quote, “Bulimia hearkens back to the hedonistic Roman days of pleasure and feast, anorexia to the medieval age of bodily mortification and voluntary famine” (p.153). Which proves that eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia have been around for centuries and decades. Along with knowing that it’s been around for quite some time, she mentions, “Most people develop anorexia more abruptly than I do, but a lot of people travel seamlessly between bulimia and anorexia, torn between two lovers” (p.69). We can see that anyone can be a victim of anorexia or bulimia but overall from an eating disorder.Over all this book gives the readers an insight on a person’s life on how they battle against their eating disorders. Not just that but it gives a clear example of two of the well-known eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia. The author has a great way of telling her story and expressing to the audience that eating disorder is a serious topic that we should be addressing but we don’t. As we read the book she shows that there are many factors such as the obsession that society has with women in general have to be thin, a broken family and lastly how much of a will does the individual have in order to admit they have a problem/disorder. Over all I feel like this book is a cry for help and awareness to those who believe that eating disorders are not a serious topic that this tends to be a phase that every girl goes through in their lifetime.

In my opinion, the author was not ready to describe her experiences. Of course, according to her, she's on death's door, so maybe she felt she needed to pump it out sooner rather than later. In any case, while she lovingly describes the mechanics of her disorder, she doesn't seem to understand herself well enough yet to really address what drove her (and apparently continues to drive her). While I hate to diagnose from my armchair, it really sounded to me like both her parents were narcissistic, and she has inherited it. This is especially noticible in the ending - right after a chapter where she claims to be done with the drama of it all, to be ready for the boring, trival details of life, she pulls back the curtain, and gasp! Shudder! She still hits the treadmill and secretly glories in her weight loss! She grimly acknowledges to her husband that she will die first!Now, being a self-absorbed drama queen doesn't make you a bad person or mean that your problems are trivial. The author is clearly very sick and deserves help. She's obviously in a lot of pain. Unfortunately, self-absorbed drama queens are generally not that likeable, and not particularly good at self-analysis, which means they might not be the best candidates for writing memoirs. Perhaps I missed it, but I don't remember any acknowledgement of what an immense pain in the butt she must have been. She vomits so much in her parents' house that the septic system breaks and their basement is flooded with puke. More than once. Her college roommates, who are just teenagers themselves, essentially get put on 24-hour suicide watch. It doesn't seem to occur to her that her anorexia provides her with an enormous amount of attention and control over those close to her. The reviews on Amazon also say that her book is highly triggering for those with major eating disorders, which must have occurred to her while she was writing it. Or maybe not.For a totally different (and much funnier) approach to mental illness, I'd recommend Jenny Traig's "Devil in the Details." She probably goes too far the other way, and her anorexia is just a footnote she shrugs off as a one more weird stage she went through. While I can't fully agree with that theory either, I am bothered by the Hornbacher's implication that all American women are on a giant sliding scale of dysfunction. The fact is, me and many of my teenage friends acquired mild eating disorders that eventually resolved themselves. For us, it WAS just a stage. Not a beneficial or attractive one, but a big deal either. I know many women with healthy attitudes towards food. This is not to dismiss the seriousness of what full-blown anorectics endure, but to me those cases are major mental illness, which cannot in my opinion be blamed on culture.I do think the story is compelling and I'd be interested to read what Hornbacher's perspective is ten years from now. Twenty-three is awfully young to be writing a memoir. Heck, who WASN'T a self-absorbed drama queen at 23?

I began reading this book for a patient and I couldn't stop...it is so good! It sheds light on ED in so many aspects. I recommend 10/10.

WASTED is not a traditional memoir by any means. It feels like it got away with the true rawness of a young woman who had reached the end of the road with her disorder, like the editor had the foresight not to "tone it down" for the sake of reaching a broader audience.I cannot, per say, recommend this book to everyone, because it is one of the most visceral reads I have encountered. Every time Marya described her vomiting and binging and self-harm behaviors, I felt nauseous and weak.But I don't think Marya intended this book to be for everyone.This is for those of us who are curious or ready to start healing, which is why her writing and publishing this is so admirable. After the publication of it, she relapsed. But BECAUSE of the publication of it, hundreds if not thousands of men and women began to heal.My hat's off to anyone who can tell the truth, and that's exactly what you see here.An added bonus is that I feel like I learned SO MUCH about the creative process by proxy. This isn't just a woman being honest. It is as pure as the act of writing can ever get.HIGHEST OF PRAISE!

Gripping, relatable, a good book, not for the faint heated or those easily triggered, if thats not you, I would recommend highly

This is a long and hard read, and not for the fainthearted or casually curious, journalling as it does what must be one of the most extreme experiences of combined bulimia and anorexia it is possible to have. The account is shocking, unremittingly cumulatively unflinchingly shocking, the language of necessity extreme as the author compels you with her on her violent 14 year downward path of self destruction (which began only at age 9) to her final prognosis at age 23 which gave her just one week to live. The reader longs in vain for that final release, that final resolution, that happy ever after ending. The release does come, but only after Hornbacher has gone beyond the possibility of any normal recovery; at last the glass becomes half full and not half empty, and life is embraced, as she starts the long slow battle back to a life resembling some normality - 'the hardest thing that I have ever done.'This book has become a best seller, has been published in 16 languages and is taught in universities round the world. Disclosing all that was kept a secret for so long was neither an easy or enjoyable process, Hornbacher's one hope in writing it being 'to keep people from going where I went.' My only caveat on this would be to say that in the wrong hands (someone caught up in or contemplating bulimia/ anorexia) this should be the LAST book to read!

I saw the reviews for this book and knew it would be very interesting, which it was. I love reading about people's life stories, addictions, mental health etc but I felt this was a step too far for me. I do not want to take any credit away from the author, she is incredibly talented and her writing is simply amazing, but sometimes I felt that certain things were over described and it would take a while for her to make a point.. Obviously this was Marya's illness coming through, her mania just didn't let her rest, but I just felt a bit worn out with it. I also wondered what happened with Marya's drug abuse, she was on a lot of substances and we never heard about any withdrawal or treatment for that.

Love it or hate it, Wasted is an exceptional and quite extraordinary book. I read with interest the other reviews here, some of which claim that the book will act as a 'trigger' to those already suffering from eating disorders. Yes, I agree this may possibly be the case.. but this does not make Wasted a bad book. A good book will make you feel something, will make you empathise with the characters, will make you understand something more about yourself or about the human condition. In all of these respects, Wasted is a hugely significant book. This book is not just another book about eating disorders - far from it. It is an intelligent, engaging and well-written account of the search for identity and one person's struggle with a truly horrific and self-destructive addiction. Shocking the subject matter may be, but personally I consider this to be a real modern classic.

The first book i've ever read on anorexia and bullimia and quite possibly the best I'm going to ever read.Not sentimental, but brilliant, sharp, open, honest, tragic and heart rendering. A story told to educate, rip apart the glamour of eating disorders.I couldn't put this book down, and while I agree with some of the reviewers that this book could be perseived as a trigger, I think it needs to be read, and i'm sure the author needed to write it.The author shows anorexia and bullimia in all it's horrors and the iron grip which it has on her to this day. To show us and help us understand that each day is a new day, but that we will always carry the scars of our past with us into the future.