Wasted Updated Edition: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

By Marya Hornbacher

A classic of psychology and eating disorders, now reissued with an important and perhaps controversial new afterword by the author, Wasted is New York Times bestselling author Marya Hornbacher's highly acclaimed memoir that chronicles her battle with anorexia and bulimia.

Vivid, honest, and emotionally wrenching, Wasted is the story of how Marya Hornbacher willingly embraced hunger, drugs, sex, and death—until a particularly horrifying bout with anorexia and bulimia in college forever ended the romance of wasting away.

In this updated edition, Hornbacher, an authority in the field of eating disorders, argues that recovery is not only possible, it is necessary. But the journey is not easy or guaranteed. With a new ending to her story that adds a contemporary edge, Wasted continues to be timely and relevant.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: May 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9780062363626

Marya Hornbacher

Marya Hornbacher’s memoir ‘Wasted’ was published to critical acclaim in 1998, and her novel ‘The Centre of Winter’ was published in 2005. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Reviews for Wasted Updated Edition

[talk0underworld · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Incredibly well-written.

[edvard-61 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book continues to fascinate me long after I first read it. It is a curious mixture of bits and pieces. But what stands out to me is what a hugely anorexic book it is. It's focus is wholly on weight loss and accounts, pound by pound, the descent. The prose runs over the physical decline, the bones pushing out, the hair falling in the shower, the coldness, the numbness, the trembling bird like hands, the tiny limbs you can fit your thumb and finger round and on and on. But in between these periods of weight loss she must have, occaisionally, had periods of weight gain. These are mentioned really only in passing, the focus is on weight _loss_ and how _that_ feels. This misses key points of the experience of eating disorders, which is if you survive it, chances are you have to gain weight, you have to sit there and accept it. Hornbacher acknowledges that she gains weight but the epilogue is anorexia's last word - she is still skipping meals, exercising through the pain, passing out. The book's narrative returns again and again to just how much she gets done. I felt at times I was reading a book written by anorexia itself - here I am winning scholarships, leaving home, swanning in and out of the doctor's office, nothing they can do, winning awards, going to a prestigious university, getting a great job, all on virtually no calories, no sleep and no slowing down. It is not of course that these things didn't happen, but that a memoir is a highly selective version of events, and this memoir shows a teenage girl winning it all - winning at school, winning awards, winning at anorexia. And anorexia being a disease that creates the desire for pain and depicting that pain, she's winning at that too, describing more than once the heart troubles, the bone deterioation. And of course, writing a book about it. She is now fixed in everyone's mind at 52 pounds. It is a punchy and graphic memoir and there is good writing in there. Hornbacher knows how to write a cool sentence, to create some vivid imagery. But there is a holding back built into it, a restraint, an intellectual distance. When it seems to throw open the door and show you all the gory details, it still holds back, not just on weight gain, but on the boring side of eating disorders, the things you miss cause youre bingeing or you have binged and cant face it, or you feel too ill, youre too tired and hungry and feel too awful. The easy fun you miss, because your whole world is seen through a lens of "what have i eaten, how thin do i look?" The guilt. This memoir swings between mouthy descriptions of her life, of dashing about with her bones poking through, getting so much done, smart-arsed sex, drugs and literature; and bursts of analysis on the meaning of the anorexic body, why someone might play with death. But I was left still cold, not really knowing who Marya was, what she was like to hang out with, what she wanted (other than "thin" and "success", which are superficial desires), her best qualities and her worst. This memoir made the same mistake that bad therapists make - they make it all about food and weight.

[lauraclm · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I would strongly recommend that parents NOT give this book to their loved ones.Parents need to know that this book is considered a "bible" by many sufferers. Due to the nature of eating disorders, reading about the experiences of others can be harmful. Narratives like this one, that lack the context of modern evidence about eating disorders, tell us a lot about her experience from inside the illness but not necessarily about the illness or treatment. Parents should also be warned that this book takes a stance about the cause of eating disorders as well as the role of parents that is not supported by the current professional training and literature about eating disorders.Hornbacher's 2nd memoir should also be considered: it re-frames the experiences in Wasted as relating to her later diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder.

[kissmeimgone · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A well written memoir that I was unable to put down. Marya Hornbacher doesn't sugar coat anything in this book, I could really relate and gain insight. I definitely recommend this book.

[lahochstetler · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Marya Hornbacher was severely anorexic and bulimic from the age of nine into her college years. In this memoir she attempts to explain the experience of having an eating disorder. The picture is grim. Hornbacher cannot locate a single cause for her eating disorder. Certainly there are plenty of the regularly-accepted influences: a family that's weird about food, a society in which women are rewarded for being quiet and skinny, and so on. While living at boarding school Hornbacher was surrounded by girls with eating disorders, hers, too, was already formed. By the time she was in college Hornbacher was nearly dead. The portrait of eating disorders that emerges from this memoir is complex and frightening. There are no simple causes and no simple answers. It is scary how easy it is for Hornbacher, as a desperately ill girl, to fall under the radar of anyone's ability to help, even parents and doctors. Hornbacher's analysis of her disease is thoughtful. She makes interesting points, and argues that anorexia in not, necessarily, an effort to remain a child. Light reading this is not, but essential for those who would like to understand more about eating disorders.

[sublunarie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was an incredibly difficult book to read.On the surface, that seems obvious. Reading the experience of a woman living with bulima, anorexia, and a plethora of other mental health issues, is going to be a difficult read. But that's not what I mean.Hornbacher wrote this memior at age 23. She ends the book (I did not read the modern reprint with her "updated" ending) rather solemnly, admitting that she is not cured, there is no answer, and essentially she cannot give an ending. She wrote this only 4 years after her nearth-death experience, and only 3 years after her suicide attempt. This memoir was written by someone still deeply in the grip of the things that had led her to that point in her life.So the uncomfortableness comes from the outsiders perspective. She insists, over and again, that she had a "normal", "good" childhood and that her eating disorder just appeared out of the blue from no where. She then goes on to detail a childhood filled with emotional trauma, surrounded by family members with mental health and food issues of their own, and as the reader we find ourselves frustratingly yelling, "it's there! it's all there! I can see it happening to you as you're writing it but you cannot see it!" Near the end of the book she still refers to her family has relatively normal, just "messy". It feels like a kick in the gut. I have not read Hornbacher's other books. I feel almost honor-bound to do so now, to not always have my memory of this author entrenched in her view of herself at 23-years-old. None of us deserve that.

[e5j · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is very intelligently written, witty and poses an intense and realistic view of eating disorders, unlike most books which seem to glamorize and idealize.

[amaraduende · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A lyrically written tale of an ugly, ugly disease.

[desiree85_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am not, nor have I ever been anorexic. However, being thin all my life, I've constantly been accused by ignorant people and doctors of having an eating disorder. Thus formed my curiousity and secret obsession of reading about, watching and finding out all I can about eating disorders. With the recent popularity of "being TOO thin" there are many books popping up on the subject. Books that are not up to par. I've read many of those books, and this is not one of them. Marya's book is insightful and sad. It puts you in her place, and she describes in great detail how anorexics feel, think and act. If I were an anorexic, I wouldn't read this book. Simply because, with all the descriptions she gives.. it could be triggering. But for someone who is just interested in eating disorders, this is the perfect book to bring you into their world and shed some light. It's extremely informative and well written, I wish there were more like it.

[piemouth · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really liked this. She has a great smartass style and just writes frankly about what anorexia and bulimia are like for her and what her life has been like. She started being bulimic at age 9. She acknowledges all the societal pressures on women and how abnormally most "normal" women eat, but also thinks there is something about her that responded to this. Her family is so much like mine, in their "stop acting like a child / why are you trying to act so grown up?" schizophrenia and their micro managing in some areas and deliberate blindness in others. I'm surprised in some ways that I didn't develop her kind of eating disorder but can see places where my life went in a different way.A long time ago someone I know said of her eating disorders that she tells people who say they wish they could get anorexia and lose weight, "If you want to kill yourself, just use a gun, it's quicker." But I never understood what she meant or what it was like. This book made what it's like clear. For the first time I wasn't thinking "What's so bad about that? It would be great to have that kind of willpower" and could see it was something that had hold of her rather than something she was doing. All that and she's funny, too.

[moniica_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Synopsis: A painful memoir about Marya's eating disorder which began when she was nine years old. From bulimia, to anorexia and even depression, Marya retells the bitter truth about how these illness' really affect you.My Opinion: Marya describes everything in vivid detail. What I really liked about this book is that it doesn't move too quickly, which I find appropriate for this book as it reminds me of the slow, yet extremely harmful way which an eating disorder will affect you. It finishes brutally as well, with Marya explaining how she will never be fully healed from what was (and is still hugely) a part of her life.

[karrieskorner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a very disturbing account of a young woman's fight with anorexia and bulimia. Hornbacher is honest and forthright about her disease and does not try to make it pretty. What is disturbing is that young women frequently read books like this and use it as a guide for how to become anorexic. Still, this is a horrifying book that will be a reality check for most people.

[nilchance · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's a terrifying read, mostly because Hornbacher paints so vividly the draw behind starving herself. The control, the need, the addiction. It's an ugly book, a hard one, and it doesn't end with the author happily recovered. She's struggling and quite frank about it.

[cecilturtle · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A powerful look at bulimia and anorexia as lived by the author. Using alternatively creative, poetic language and harsh facts, Hornbacher sets out - and succeeds - to demystify the romantic aesthetics of thinness, to communicate just how much she hated herself and her body to go through such lengths to destroy herself and the constant price that she now has to pay for a normal healthy life. A shocking story of a young women who from ages nine to eighteen suffered in solitude from a little understood disease. A must read for all women and especially mothers.

[fluffyblue_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've read this book twice now. It's certainly an interesting read although some of it is a little too 'poetical' for my tastes. I found myself really wanting her to get better, and I hope that she has managed to work through her demons and stay healthy since writing the book.

[gaialover · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A gripping memoir, interlaced with the author's perspectives on the hows and whys of eating disorders.

[stixnstones004 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book should be read by every grade school girl and every woman in Western civilization, if not the world. Along with being very well written, it is a haunting critique on the ramifications of our culture's idea of beauty. It's the memoir of a woman (the author) who dealt with bulimia and anorexia for 15 years of her life. And yet this book reflects the majority of women, regardless of whether they have eating disorders or not. Hornbacher constantly refers to the fact that most women in our culture are obsessed with their weight, that the paragon of cultural beauty is found in a body that is prepubescent at best, and that society expects women to be something that is unrealistic if not distinctly unhealthy. It will scare you, how much of yourself you see in this novel. An absolutely amazing, striking, and tragic memoir.

[caycespeck · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An absolutely amazing account of a woman who dealt with eating disorders and still deals with them. She describes everything from how it began, being hospitalized several times, and trying to recover. Marya details things in such a way that you feel as if you're inside her, living her life. At the same time you want so badly for her to understand her beauty. Anyone who has ever dealt with body issues, food issues, or eating disorders should most definitely pick up this book. It is by far one of my favorites of all time.

[angelic55blonde · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a great book. Myra Hornbacher is brutally honest in this memoir. She doesn't sugarcoat anything and shows the reader the truely ugly and dangerous side to eating disorders. It a book every young girl and woman should read, especially in our society today where thinness is emphasized and actresses and models today are just shrinking and shrinking to the point where they just look like skeletons. This book opens the reader's eye to the horror of eating disorders and how it truely is a disease that needs understanding. This is an easy read considering the subject matter and I've read it a dozen times. Highly recommend it.

[joiescire · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fasicinating. I loved this.

[the_butterfly_girl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Like most have said, this book is *EXTREMELY* triggering. It is not a novel I would recommend for anyone who beginning the recovery process from an eating disorder nor do I recommend it for someone who feels they could be coached to relapse easily.This book is 100% BRUTAL honesty about her life and the struggles with her own disordered eating.It will take you into her mind and really show you the day-to-day life of an anorexic.It's a poignant tale. Not for the weak-minded or the newly recovering. But it's her tale and its the truth and way of life of so many people.

[msmalnick · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Although, thankfully, I could not relate to the severity of the author's disease, I still loved this book. The writing is strong and the story is amazing. This woman is lucky to be alive, not only because she abused her body to such a tremendous degree, but also because she was able to share her story.

[rampaginglibrarian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

a book i really related to--more for the prose and the shared experience--perhaps of "being different" and mood disorder problems rather than eating disorders--very well written.