Wasted

A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

By: Marya Hornbacher

Narrated by: Marya Hornbacher

Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

Precociously intelligent, imaginative, energetic, and ambitious, Marya Hornbacher grew up in a comfortable middle-class American home. At the age of 5, she returned home from ballet class one day, put on an enormous sweater, curled up on her bed, and cried because she thought she was fat. By age 9, 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 repertoire 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 52 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 slip 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 Hornbacher 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 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 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.

one of the best books I've listened to

The first few minutes into listening to this book I considered stopping because the audio quality seemed a little off and I thought the book was going to be boring but I'm glad I didn't. It was so good I didn't want to stop listening to it. The story was well told and didn't have a boring moment and it taught a lot about eating disorders

Ouch

I cried a lot throughout from a range of emotions. Deeply and startlingly truthful. Not for the feint of heart.

Raw and real

Direct no sugar coating, no fake ending either. So raw and real. Thank you for sharing.

Glamorless...

In “Wasted,” Marya Hornbacher’s battle with her body is nothing short of epic, but unlike a true epic it is far from heroic. Hornbacher is the unlikely antagonist in her own life story, hating her body to the very brink of death. “Wasted” captures every dramatic, painful and often repulsive detail. If you can bear to look at it, you will glimpse in raw form the gruesome reality of eating disorders. There is no glamor here. There is hunger, vomit, blood and bones.

This abridged version of “Wasted,” read by Hornbacher herself, is so seamless that I did not even realize it was abridged until I discovered this fact in another listener’s review. Hornbacher is the perfect narrator. No other reader could get this story so right.

If you are hoping for a happy ending, Hornbacher advises you to look elsewhere. She denies the existence of a happy ending to her story, claiming that the best one can hope for in the end is simply “letting go.”

But here is a secret – many years have passed since this book was written. During those years Hornbacher continued to struggle with her eating disorder, and she came face to face with a terrible mental illness that left her grasping for sanity and hope (see “Madness: A Bipolar Life). In the end, she managed to do better than just let go. She conquered and overcame. And, lucky for the rest of us, she lived to write about it.

abridged memoir

I love this book, so I jumped at the chance to hear the author read it. I do wish it was unabridged, however, as there are some really good, key parts that are missing--things I really wanted to hear her say.

Honest and enlightening

I listen to this amazing book to remind me why I chose life. Marya's dry humour and brutal honesty make this a fantastic listen. Any ED survivor will relate to all - especially the little details of hospilization. Truthful, heartfealt, a courageous decision by the author. Fantastic!

Tells the brutal truth

Where does Wasted rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is #2

Who was your favorite character and why?

This is a true story about the authors battle with eating disorders.

What does Marya Hornbacher bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Her voice helps bring out the emotions better.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Any additional comments?

This is a great book for those trying to understand the mind of a person with an eating disorder and for those who are battling one themselves.

I just loved her vocabulary

I just loved her vocabulary. she seems strong and independent. I identified with many of her issues

This is the eating disorder book you need

Everything about this book is perfect. It makes me thankful I escaped my bulimia with my life. It does not glamorize any aspect of it like many many other books on the subject do. I recommend this book for anyone who is flirting with the idea of an eating disorder. Read/listen to it all the way through, learn the evil side of it all and thank god you haven't gotten sucked in yet.

Excellent book! No Unabridged Version :(

I bought the paperback and audio for a class and decided to alternate between the two to compensate for the times I couldn't sit down to read. After a while though, I realized that the audio was shorter than the book! Sections of the book were being skipped and I was missing details when listening.
It made me sad, but the audio was still great - I hope they make an unabridged copy.