"Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia" by Marya Hornbacher is a raw and brutally honest account of the author's struggles with anorexia and bulimia from a young age. Through vivid descriptions and poignant storytelling, Hornbacher takes the reader on a journey through her battles with disordered eating, hospitalizations, and attempts at recovery. The book delves deep into the day-to-day life of an individual living with an eating disorder, shedding light on the harsh realities and emotional turmoil that accompany such illnesses.
Hornbacher's writing style alternates between creative, poetic language and stark, factual accounts, effectively demystifying the romanticized notions of thinness and beauty. The memoir serves as a powerful exploration of the author's inner struggles, self-hatred, and the constant battle for a normal, healthy life. It offers a candid portrayal of the author's ongoing fight with her demons and the lasting impact of her eating disorders, making it a compelling and eye-opening read for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of these illnesses.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings include graphic depictions of eating disorders, mental health struggles, suicidal ideation, childhood trauma, and potentially triggering discussions about food, weight, and body image.
From The Publisher:
Precociously intelligent, imaginative, energetic, and ambitious, Marya Hornbacher grew up in a comfortable middle-class American home. At the age of five, she returned home from ballet class one day, put on a enormous sweater, curled up on her bed, and cried-because she thought she was fat. By age nine she was secretly bulimic, throwing up at home after school, while watching Brady Bunch reruns on television and munching Fritos. She added anorexia to her repetoire a few years later and took great pride in her ability to starve.
Marya's story gathers intensity with each passing year. By the time she is in college and working for a wire news service in Washington, D.C., she is in the grip of a bout of anorexia so horrifying that it will forever put to rest the romance of wasting away. Down to fifty-two pounds and counting, Marya becomes a battlefield: her powerful death instinct at war with the will to live.
Why would a talented young girl go through the looking glass and step into a netherworld where up is down, food is greed, and death is honor? Why enter into a love affair with hunger, drugs, sex, and death? Marya sustained both anorexia and bulimia through five lengthy hospitalizations, endless therapy, the loss of family, friends, jobs, and, ultimately, any sense of what it means to be "normal." In this vivid, emotionally wrenching memoir, she recreates the experience and illuminates the tangle of personal, family and cultural causes unlying eating disorders.
Wasted is the story of one woman's travels to the darker side of reality, and her decision to find her way back again-on her own terms.
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About the Author:
Marya Hornbacher is an American author and journalist. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for her autobiographical account of her struggle with eating disorders, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, which has been translated into 16 languages and…
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