Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Marya Hornbacher

HarperCollins, Jan 15, 1999 - Biography & Autobiography - 298 pages

Why would a talented young girl go through the looking glass and step into a netherworld where up is down and food is greed, where death is honor and flesh is weak? Why enter into a love affair with hunger, drugs, sex, and death? Marya Hornbacher sustains both anorexia and bulimia through five lengthy hospitalizations, endless therapy, and the loss of family, friends, jobs, and ultimately, any sense of what it means to be "normal." By the time she is in college, Hornbacher is in the grip of a bout with anorexia so horrifying that it will forever put to rest the romance of wasting away. In this vivid, emotionally wrenching memoir, she re-created the experience and illuminated that tangle of personal, family, and cultural causes underlying 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--on her own terms.

What people are saying

Review: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

User Review - Goodreads

It's difficult to sum up my thoughts on Wasted, seeing as I'm no literary buff. There were a lot of things that bothered me about this novel. Hornbacher refers to sufferers of eating disorders as ...

Review: Wasted: A Memoir Of Anorexia And Bulimia

User Review  - Michelle - Goodreads

I just wanted to respond to the reviewers who mention this book as a good way to get eating disorder tips. That can be true of basically any book on eating disorders, including medical textbooks, as ...

Contents

• Childhood: 9
• Bulimia: 36
• The Actors Part: 88
• Methodist Hospital Take 1: 145
• Lockup: 181
• Waiting for Godot: 214
• Dying Is an Art Like Everything Else: 244
• Bibliography: 291

About the author

Marya Hornbacher is the author of two best-selling nonfiction titles, "Madness: A Bipolar Life" and "Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia"; the recovery handbook "Sane: Mental Illness, Addiction, and the 12 Steps"; and the critically acclaimed novel "The Center of Winter". She is currently working on a new novel and is active in the Twin Cities recovery community.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
• Author: Marya Hornbacher
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: HarperCollins, 1999
• ISBN: 0060930934, 9780060930936
• Length: 298 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / General; Biography & Autobiography / Medical; Biography & Autobiography / Women; Health & Fitness / General; Psychology / Psychopathology / Eating Disorders