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Wasted

A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

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Wasted

By: Marya Hornbacher
Narrated by: Marya Hornbacher
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About this listen

 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.©1998 Marya Hornbacher; (P)1998 Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, A Division of Random House, Inc. Eating Disorders Hygiene & Healthy Living Mental Health Personal Development Psychology & Mental Health Memoir Inspiring Health Eating Disorder Memoirs

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All stars
Most relevant
The way it’s wrote and spoke. The way she describes things you can literally walk through her memories and it’s so interesting to be there.

Adore this book.

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Fantastic book, even better to listen to. Marya's narration is the best I have heard.

Marya is honestly just so wonderful

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The only thing better than reading Wasted is having Marya Hornbacher read Wasted to you. She is a natural storyteller.

Brilliant

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a really raw and gritty account of an eating disorder. I enjoyed her writing style a lot, It feels like a conversation with a friend. Parts where quite hard to listen to but I think if you have someone in your life with an ED this book will give you a really detailed insight into what is happening in their head. unless you've been there, it is so hard to comprehend why someone might engage in this behaviour but this book lays it out really well.

hard hitting

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I found this book very easy to listen to - it kept my attention throughout - the author writes very well. I am interested in any form of addiction and found it a fascinating, absorbing and very honest read.
I listened to it during a car journey and the 100 miles passed in no time.

very informative

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