Wasted Updated Edition: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (P.S.) Paperback – May 27, 2014

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.

I have truly never, ever in my life read a book that was able to reach out, and touch me in the way that Marya Hornbacher's, "Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia," did. This memoir literally changed my life, let alone encouraged me to set the first foot forth out of the darkness in hopes to change the destructive path that I am on. She not only writes with personal wisdom, but also with TRUTH. Everything she writes is just SO RELATABLE! I've spent years searching, and reading through ED Memoirs, but Wasted is nothing like the rest. It's not artificial, and fake... It is strickingly REAL. Wasted includes so much personal knowledge surrounding just about all aspects of Eating Disorders...(Ex: Reasons for onset, personal accounts, feelings, attitutudes, etc.)This book is beautifully written. These are the words I have not been able to speak. Many times while reading this memoir- I gained a little bit more insight, along with a little bit more courage. I was even able to talk openly about Anorexia Nervosa with my Mother (This time equipted with the knowledge from Wasted.) It helped heal some wounds, and bring my family back to me. Hornbacher gave me the explanations behind all the words I say, and actions I do... & I could even explain them more rationally to my parents.I have read this over and over again, and each time I read it- I feel a little bit less alone in the world; even if just for a tiny moment in time. It's the truest, rawest, down to earth, and relatable ED memoir I've come across. I know that no other book will ever give to me the inspiration or encouragement to heal, and the answers I've been trying to find since 6th grade. Every single time I picked this book up to continue reading- I came upon more & more discoverys about my own Eating Disorder & myself, my life, and my environment. Please everybody read this book. Feel the hope that's there.

As recovering anorexic, I have read many novels, memoirs and "self help" books about this disease that I, and so many others, suffer from. Hornbacher's memoir is the best of this type of book that I have read on the subject, for its eloquent writing addresses the emotional aspect of an eating disorder, while proving once and for all that anorexia and bulimia are not about food. On the other hand, this is a dangerous book to read, and should not be taken lightly or handed out to everyone. I say it's dangerous because it shares all the magician's secrets; most anoretics or bulimics would be happy to read this book, not to get well, but to discover new ways to manipulate others and sink further into the disease. However, this is the perfect book for anyone who wants or needs to understand the mind of an eating disordered person, though the hell-like situation Marya encounters is scary, even to those who know what it's like. All in all, I highly recommend this exquisitely sad memoir, though it's not for everyone.

This book is such a beautifully written, poetic, gripping, and at times shocking memoir. Marya's story is both very informative and intriguing to anyone interested in the subject of eating disorders.

Honesto y revelador. Exprsa la verdad de lo que implica padecer un trastorno alimenticio.

,,Wasted" ist ein Buch, dass man liest und auch Jahre später immer wieder hervorholt, um Passagen daraus zu lesen.Dieses Buch ist so eindrucksvoll, schonungslos ehrlich und faszinierend. Marya Hornbacher hat eine Schreibe, wie sie nur ein paar Mal pro Generation vorkommt. So raffiniert und gut recherchiert beleuchtet sie ihre Essstörung aus jedem Blickwinkel und erzählt dabei ihre Lebensgeschichte mit allen Höhen und Tiefen. Ihre von Magersucht und Bulimie dominierte Kindheit und Jugend erweckt unglaublich viele Emotionen beim Leser und unterscheidet sich einfach grundlegend von den nicht-biographischen Werken zu diesem Thema, die so oft nur ein schwaches Jugendbuch-Niveau erreichen. Aber auch andere vergleichbare biographische Werke werden von ,,Wasted" mühelos ausgestochen.Marya Hornbacher zieht Fachliteratur hinzu, wenn sie ihre Essstörung und ihre diversen Klinikaufenthalte analysiert und beleuchtet auch die Eindrücke und Erfahrungen ihrer Mitmenschen. Für Angehörige von Betroffenen kann dieses Buch unglaublich hilfreich dabei sein, Betroffene ein klein wenig zu verstehen.Für Betroffene selbst sei vor dem Lesen Vorsicht geboten - ,,Wasted" ist extrem triggernd und kann Betroffene schnell zu Rückfällen verleiten. Hornbacher beschreibt klar essgestörtes Verhalten und auch die positiven Emotionen, die die Krankheit oft in ihr ausgelöst hat. Ein ,,Abchreckungs-Buch" ist ,,Wasted" für die meisten betroffenen Leser nicht.Wenn man das beste Memoir zu Anorexie oder Bulimie sucht, ist ,,Wasted" die erste Wahl.

Firstly, let me just say that I don't "do" reviews - in fact this is my first one.I couldn't put this book down. It moved me, made me laugh, surprised and shocked me. But at the same time I sensed that Marya was not writing with to create sensationalism. She was simply saying how it was. In fact in her prologue she goes on to say how difficult this book was to write but felt that if she could save just one person from going through what she went through then it would be worth it. It wasn't a cathartic journey she was under taking, it wasn't any type of therapy - as she says she pays experts a lot of money for that.Although I am not anorexic or bulimic I could see how very easily it would have been to go down that road. I have always had a weight problem - well in my eyes anyway, when people said I didn't, to me, that was just people being nice.Having said that when you read about her childhood she didn't stand much of a chance with regards to her self image. She doesn't say that she had a particularly bad childhood and she loves her Mum and step dad to bits. But I loved the way that she didn't lay it all at there door as so many seem to do these days instead of taking ownership. Sure, the way you're brought up can and will affect the person you become but that doesn't mean you have to drag the same baggage around with you until the day you die.The very sad part of this, and I am not ashamed to say, that it moved me to tears, is the fact that due to the punishment she put her body through via bingeing, starvation, laxatives and other forms of self-harm she will never live to a ripe old age - in short she has hastened her own funeral.This book is not just for those of us with eating or weight disorders but anyone that loves a good human interest story, even though there is no happy ending (at least not in the normal sense) it gives us all a greater understanding of the human psyche.This woman (I forget sometimes she is only 22 at the time of writing) is a real writer with a story to tell a supposed to just someone with a story to tell. I would love to read anything this woman wrote.Overall I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

I loved this book. i had heard good things about it when I purchased it, and when I saw the price, I figured it was worth picking it up and reading it. Boy, am I glad I did. She uses some very interesting writing techniques; for example, to deliver emphasis in a section of the book, she switches to describing it in the second-person. If the subject matter interests you at all, the book is well worth the price.