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Seventeen-year-old Elena is vanishing. Every day means renewed determination, so every day means fewer calories. This is the story of a girl whose armor against anxiety becomes artillery against herself as she battles on both sides of a lose-lose war in a struggle with anorexia.
In this searing, unflinchingly honest book, Portia de Rossi captures the complex emotional truth of what it is like when food, weight, and body image take priority over every other human impulse or action. She recounts the elaborate rituals around eating that came to dominate hours of every day, from keeping her daily calorie intake below 300 to eating precisely measured amounts of food out of specific bowls and only with certain utensils. When this wasn’t enough, she resorted to purging and compulsive physical exercise, driving her body and spirit to the breaking point.
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 5 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.
From Cat Marnell, "New York's enfant terrible" ( The Telegraph), a candid and darkly humorous memoir of prescription drug addiction and self-sabotage, set in the glamorous world of fashion magazines and downtown nightclubs.
In this painfully moving memoir, take a firsthand look at anorexia through the eyes of a young girl. Even in kindergarten, Rachel Richards knows something isn't right. By leading us through her distorted thoughts, she shines a light on the experience and mystery of mental illness. As she grows up, unable to comprehend or communicate her inner trauma, Rachel lashes out, hurting herself, running away from home, and fighting her family. Restricting food gives her the control she craves. But after being hospitalized and force-fed, Rachel only retreats further into herself.
Lia and Cassie were best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies. But now Cassie is dead. Lia's mother is busy saving other people's lives.Her father is away on business. Her stepmother is clueless. And the voice inside Lia's head keeps telling her to remain in control, stay strong, lose more, weigh less. If she keeps on going this way - thin, thinner, thinnest - maybe she'll disappear altogether.
Seventeen-year-old Elena is vanishing. Every day means renewed determination, so every day means fewer calories. This is the story of a girl whose armor against anxiety becomes artillery against herself as she battles on both sides of a lose-lose war in a struggle with anorexia.
In this searing, unflinchingly honest book, Portia de Rossi captures the complex emotional truth of what it is like when food, weight, and body image take priority over every other human impulse or action. She recounts the elaborate rituals around eating that came to dominate hours of every day, from keeping her daily calorie intake below 300 to eating precisely measured amounts of food out of specific bowls and only with certain utensils. When this wasn’t enough, she resorted to purging and compulsive physical exercise, driving her body and spirit to the breaking point.
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 5 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.
From Cat Marnell, "New York's enfant terrible" ( The Telegraph), a candid and darkly humorous memoir of prescription drug addiction and self-sabotage, set in the glamorous world of fashion magazines and downtown nightclubs.
In this painfully moving memoir, take a firsthand look at anorexia through the eyes of a young girl. Even in kindergarten, Rachel Richards knows something isn't right. By leading us through her distorted thoughts, she shines a light on the experience and mystery of mental illness. As she grows up, unable to comprehend or communicate her inner trauma, Rachel lashes out, hurting herself, running away from home, and fighting her family. Restricting food gives her the control she craves. But after being hospitalized and force-fed, Rachel only retreats further into herself.
Lia and Cassie were best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies. But now Cassie is dead. Lia's mother is busy saving other people's lives.Her father is away on business. Her stepmother is clueless. And the voice inside Lia's head keeps telling her to remain in control, stay strong, lose more, weigh less. If she keeps on going this way - thin, thinner, thinnest - maybe she'll disappear altogether.
Leaving behind a nightmarish college experience, 19-year-old Nicole and her best friend Eric escape their home of Bangor, Maine to start a new life in Boston. Fragile and scared, Nicole desperately seeks a new beginning to help erase her past. But there is something besides freedom waiting for her in the shadows - a drug that will make every day a nightmare.
In the tradition of Orange Is the New Black and Jerry Stahl's Permanent Midnight, Amy Dresner's My Fair Junkie is an insightful, darkly funny, and shamelessly honest memoir of one woman's battle with all forms of addiction, hitting rock bottom, and forging a path to a life worth living.
Seventeen-year-old Stevie is trapped. In her life. And now in an eating-disorder treatment center on the dusty outskirts of the New Mexico desert. Life in the center is regimented and intrusive, a nightmare come true. Nurses and therapists watch Stevie at mealtime, accompany her to the bathroom, and challenge her to eat the foods she's worked so hard to avoid.
Lisa Smith was a bright young lawyer at a prestigious law firm in New York City when alcoholism and drug addiction took over her life. What was once a way she escaped her insecurity and negativity as a teenager became a means of coping with the anxiety and stress of an impossible workload. Girl Walks Out of a Bar explores Smith's formative years, her decade of alcohol and drug abuse, divorce, and her road to recovery.
From the extra pounds and bullies that left her eating lunch alone at school to the low self-esteem that left her both physically and emotionally vulnerable to abuse, Jasmin Singer's weight defined her life. Even after she embraced a vegan lifestyle and a passion for animal rights advocacy, she defied any skinny vegan stereotypes by getting heavier. It was only after she committed to juice fasts and a diet of whole foods that she lost almost a hundred pounds and realized what it means to be truly full.
With its deeply personal and seamless blend of memoir, cultural history, literary criticism, and reportage, The Recovering turns our understanding of the traditional addiction narrative on its head, demonstrating that the story of recovery can be every bit as electrifying as the train wreck itself. Leslie Jamison deftly excavates the stories we tell about addiction - both her own and others' - and examines what we want these stories to do and what happens when they fail us. All the while, she offers a fascinating look at the larger history of the recovery movement and at the complicated bearing that race and class have on our understanding of who is criminal and who is ill.
The two-time Emmy Award-winning actress has written her first book, a surprisingly raw and triumphant memoir that is outrageous, moving, sweet, tragic, and heartbreakingly honest. Guts is a true triumph - a memoir that manages to be as frank and revealing as Augusten Burroughs, yet as hilarious and witty as David Sedaris.
When Marya Hornbacher published her acclaimed first book, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, she did not yet have a piece of shattering knowledge: the underlying reason for her distress. At age 24, Hornbacher was diagnosed with Type I rapid-cycle bipolar, the most severe form of bipolar disease there is.
Waiter to the Rich and Shameless is not just a peek into the secretive inner workings of a legendary five-star restaurant; it is not just a celebrity tell-all or a scathing corporate analysis. It is a top-tier waiter's personal coming-of-age story, an intimate look into the complicated challenges of serving in the country's most elite, Hollywood-centric dining room while fighting to maintain a sense of self and purpose.
Khalil Rafati went to Los Angeles in the 1990s and had it all. He was working with Hollywood movie stars and legendary rock musicians, but it wasn't long before he found his way into the dark underbelly of the City of Angels. When he hit rock bottom-addicted to heroin and cocaine, overtaken by paranoia and psychosis, written off by his friends and family - he grabbed a shovel and kept digging. So how does someone with nothing, who feels like they deserve nothing, and who just wants to end it all turn their life around?
A best seller in its native Canada, Drunk Mom is a gripping, brutally honest memoir of motherhood in the shadow of alcoholism. Three years after giving up drinking, Jowita Bydlowska found herself throwing back a glass of champagne like it was ginger ale. It was a special occasion: a party celebrating the birth of her first child. It also marked Bydlowska's immediate, full-blown return to crippling alcoholism.
Dr. Peter Grinspoon seemed to be a total success: a Harvard-educated MD with a thriving practice; married with two great kids and a gorgeous wife; a pillar of his community. But lurking beneath the thin veneer of having it all was an addict fueled on a daily boatload of prescription meds. When the police finally came calling - after a tip from a sharp-eyed pharmacist - Grinspoon's house of cards came tumbling down fast.
A memoir of a brief career as a top model - and a brutally honest account of what goes on behind the scenes in a fascinating closed industry.
Scouted in the street when she was 17, Victoire Dauxerre's story started like a teenager's dream: within months she was on the catwalks of New York's major fashion shows and part of the most select circle of in-demand supermodels in the world.
But when fashion executives and photographers began to pressure her about her weight, forcing her to become ever thinner, Victoire's fantasy came at a cost. Food was now her enemy, and soon, living on only three apples a day and Diet Coke galore, Victoire became anorexic.
An unflinching, painful exposé of the uglier face of fashion, her testimony is a shocking example of how our culture's mechanisms of anorexia and bulimia can push a young woman to the point of suicide.
It is the story of a survivor whose fight against poisonous illness and body image shows us how to take courage and embrace life.
I have a friend who is a runway model and another who is a principal ballet dancer, so I was aware of the intense body image pressures involved in these industries. But I've always been interested in fashion, so I thought this might be a good choice.
Did I ever make a mistake! Even at a dollar an hour, this book is overpriced twaddle.
Again and again she repeats compliments given to her about how beautiful she is. I would say this is 25% of the book. Yes, we know you are beautiful. That is why you have a modeling contract, my dear. It became LOL hilarious after a time.
She is unable to describe anything except in terms of three words. Those who worship her are "adorable," those who are competitive or who do not do what she wishes are "b------," and good experiences are "sublime." The tone is shallow and narcissistic throughout.
When I was young, a friend of mine died from bulimia. I found Dauxerre's superficial glossing over about "recovery" to be utterly senseless, reflecting her shallow mind. Compare this to the moving depth of a book such as that of "Unbearable Lightness," and it quickly becomes obvious how ridiculous this book is.
If you're looking for a book written in the style of a narcissistic teenager who expects the world to adore her or else she goes crying back to her mum, look no further. Sadly, the book reflects so much of what is wrong with inflated expectations of young people who expect instant stardom and special treatment without effort. This is the story of a model who could not handle the pressures in a healthy way, threw away her chances for a brilliant career, and finally blames an industry for it all. How precious and entitled, Mlle. Dauxerre.
9 of 10 people found this review helpful
I could not stop listening. Great narration and a riveting account of meteoric rise in the fashion industry. I am not a "fashionista" but I still loved it.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
I lost count of how many times she used the word "sublime" but it was EXCESSIVE and annoying.
Other than that, I liked the book and it provided an interesting glimpse into a world not written about often and its dark side.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
Where does Size Zero rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I used to be a high fashion model and this rings true for a certain type of girl. I am naturally thin actually so I didn't have this experience but I saw many many girls suffer and die. I decided to quit even though I was successful because models are abused emotionally and otherwise. So I recommend you read this to get one perspective and there are others of coarse. I think it's great that this author is acting now as sounds like a super interesting person and I wish her well.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
I think I'm the most surprised to realize the life of a model is pretty boring, as well as dehumanizing, mind numbing and overall poorly paid. That said, Victoire told the story of all the waiting, inhumane treatment and lack of eating in a fairly interesting way. Based on the title and the profession, the inside stories of the need to be thin, the disordered eating and the sleazy managers were unsurprising. I thought her strongest storyline within the memoir was the rift her year as a model created within her family, and how her parents' complete lack of understanding about the details of her experience led them to give her disastrous parental advice over and over (Stick to it! Don't quit! You signed a contract, that's pretty serious, you should abide by it! Etc.). Once they understood what she was up against, it was very nearly too late for real intervention.
Emily Lucienne did a good job with the narration and made the author sound likeable and relatable. Overall decent book.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful
My thanks to Victoire Dauxerre for having the courage to write such an amazing account of her life as a model.
This book opens our eyes to the REAL LIFE these beautiful people go through. Both the men and women models.
Emily Lucienne has a pleasant voice. Very easy to follow along with.
I highly recommend this book!
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
OK, I admit I enjoy reading about the problems of others, especially beautiful others. It reminds me there are disadvantages to everything, problems everywhere and not to judge a book by its cover. As lucky as she is, with her beauty and her rapid rise in the modeling profession, it's not worth it. Her original direction, as an ordinary student and scholar, is inherently more rewarding. I hope she's doing something fun now because that modeling life sounds truly awful.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Victoire Dauxerre has done an amazing job pulling you into the world of modeling. I could not stop listening to her story. Emily Lucienne also did a fantastic job narrating this book. why do these designers feel they can treat these young women the way they do. It's horrendous! It's so close to slave labor it's frightening. It is mentally, emotionally, and physically abusive treatments. I don't understand how it is allowed to continue. I'm so happy for you, Victoire, that you were able to get out when you did. You are a strong, intelligence, and extremely beautiful woman both inside and out.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful
I listened through the book quickly. The narrator is clear and articulate. The story overuses the same descriptive words, but it was entertaining and enlightening of the size zero world of fashion modelling.
So much of the same over and over. Same scene, same story same result. How many times was the word "sublime" used?
2 of 4 people found this review helpful
A wonderfully emotional story of Victoire who is thrust into the world of fashion modelling on the catwalks in New York, Milan and Paris.
The ups and downs, the magic and the appallingly bad ways models can be treated. All told by a wonderful writer and beautifully read.
Highly recommended
1 of 1 people found this review helpful