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Kelsey Osgood
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How to Disappear Completely: On Modern Anorexia Kindle Edition

by Kelsey Osgood (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.0 out of 5 stars 178 ratings
“Eloquent . . . An incredibly realistic portrayal of anorexia.” —The New Yorker

She devoured their memoirs and magazine articles, committing the most salacious details to memory to learn what it would take to be the very best anorexic. When she was hospitalized at fifteen, she found herself in an existential wormhole: How can one suffer from something one has actively sought out?

With attuned storytelling and unflinching introspection, Kelsey Osgood unpacks the modern myths of anorexia as she chronicles her own rehabilitation. How to Disappear Completely is a brave, candid and emotionally wrenching memoir that explores the physical, internal, and social ramifications of eating disorders.

“Osgood vividly portrays the creepy phenomenon of the ‘pro-ana’ movement and the claustrophobic, self-involved, achingly lonely world in which young women compete to be ‘perfect’ anorexics. . . . imbued with pathos and tenderness.” —Publishers Weekly

“What sets Kelsey Osgood’s memoir apart from the existing literature on anorexia is the author’s commitment to stripping the glamour and romance from the illness . . . Intelligent, moving, beautifully written, Osgood has written a paean to wellness, and taken a forthright look at everything that anorexia, ‘bastard child of vanity and self-loathing,’ took from her life.” —Molly McCloskey, author of Circles Around the Sun: In Search of a Lost Brother
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  1. Print length
    269 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    ABRAMS Press
  4. Publication date
    September 30, 2014
  5. Reading age
    18 years and up
  6. File size
    3.6 MB
  7. Page Flip
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  8. Word Wise
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  9. Enhanced typesetting
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kelsey Osgood is a Brooklyn-based writer. She has contributed to The New Yorker's Culture Desk blog, Salon, New York, and Gothamist, among others. She is a graduate of Columbia University and Goucher's College's MFA program in Creative Nonfiction. How to Disappear Completely is her first book.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07P8DJV63
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ ABRAMS Press; 1st edition (September 30, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 30, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3.6 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 269 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 out of 5 stars 178 ratings

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Kelsey Osgood

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4 out of 5 stars
178 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book great to read and appreciate its writing quality. Moreover, the content receives positive feedback for being interesting, with one customer describing it as an eye-opener. However, the narrative style receives mixed reactions, with one customer finding it repetitive.

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11 customers mention "Readability"8 positive3 negative

Customers find the book readable, with one describing it as masterful.

"...Thoroughly enjoyed this book!! Thank you to Kelsey Osgood for her creation." Read more

"...This book still is a bit triggering, but it criticzes well and might an eye-opener for some." Read more

"This is an incredible book which changed how I will think about anorexia and books about anorexia forever...." Read more

"This is an enjoyable read despite the author’s insistence on her flawed and sometimes offensive thesis...." Read more

8 customers mention "Writing quality"8 positive0 negative

Customers praise the writing quality of the book, with one noting that the choice of wording is compelling.

"Great writing, not to mention honest and personally responsible insights into a devastating illness. Thoroughly enjoyed this book!!..." Read more

"...While her writing was amazing, I noticed something unhealthy was stirred inside of me. The memoir was not devaluing anorexia’s currency...." Read more

"...Kelsey Osgood is a terrific writer who uses her personal experience to explore the topic in a much broader context. I could not put this book down...." Read more

"While Kelsey Osgood's writing and choice of wording are compelling and masterful, her account of her own foray into "wannarexia", or a not-..." Read more

7 customers mention "Enthralling content"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book's content engaging and thought-provoking, with one customer describing it as an eye-opener.

"Great writing, not to mention honest and personally responsible insights into a devastating illness. Thoroughly enjoyed this book!!..." Read more

"...I think this is incredibly interesting for those who have been eating-disordered for a long time and have dwelled in the world of online communities..." Read more

"...That is constructive and provocative. My first major issue is how her subsequent memoir plays into the critique she is making...." Read more

"This book was really fascinating - it's less a straightforward memoir and more of a cultural history of anorexia...." Read more

11 customers mention "Narrative style"3 positive8 negative

Customers have mixed reactions to the narrative style of the book, with some finding it engaging while others describe it as repetitive and rambling.

"...This book still is a bit triggering, but it criticzes well and might an eye-opener for some." Read more

"...I would emerge from these dark, aesthetic, triggering memoirs in a daze, and it might take me between hours and days to re-orient myself to the..." Read more

"...fascinating - it's less a straightforward memoir and more of a cultural history of anorexia...." Read more

"...Much of this book seems rambling and pointless; I wish I'd known that prior to picking it up..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • marybeth nielsen
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!
    Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2019
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    Great writing, not to mention honest and personally responsible insights into a devastating illness. Thoroughly enjoyed this book!! Thank you to Kelsey Osgood for her creation.
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  • winemouse
    4.0 out of 5 stars Captivating, but a bit awkward
    Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2018
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    I've read quite a lot of books and novels about eating disorders and was very curious about this one.

    The author tells her story, with all her struggles, very interestingly. I think this is incredibly interesting for those who have been eating-disordered for a long time and have dwelled in the world of online communities for EDs. Osgoode points out that these communities can be just as destructive as some contact with fellow inpatients. I liked how she openly spoke about doctor's and society's failure to recognize and understand eating disordered patients who are atypical and not starved to the bone.
    I also absolutely get her criticism regarding Marya Hornbacher's memoir and similar ED-themed books. A lot books on anorexia come across as trigger-softporn almost. Eating disorders are too often are unintentionally romanticized by the media.
    However I did find her criticism on Hornbacher a bit awkwardly self-indulgent at times.

    I would recommend this books to those who are affected and are maybe recovered or on the road to recovery. This book still is a bit triggering, but it criticzes well and might an eye-opener for some.
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  • Charlotte
    3.0 out of 5 stars A new kind of anorexia memoir?
    Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2014
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    When I sat down to read Kelsey Osgood’s How to Disappear Completely: On Modern Anorexia, I was more than a little excited. I had read a review of the book in the New Yorker and was interested in how Osgood was going to critique the modern anorexia memoir and provide a corrective alternative. I was elated that finally, maybe I could read an anorexia memoir and not be triggered.

    Yeah… that wasn’t really how things happened.

    There were parts of Osgood’s memoir with which I found myself nodding in agreement. Anorexia memoirs often glamorize and romanticize the disease and have a sort of aesthetic appeal that veers on a perceived fulfillment of a spiritual or cultural ideal (classic memoir that does this = Hornbacher’s Wasted). That is problematic. As Osgood argues, an un-addressed but problematic part of these memoirs is that they are too graphic. They describe too many showing clavicles, too many weigh-ins, too many calorie counts. As Osgood asserts, these memoirs can serve as guideposts for sickness or even how-to guides. Finally, someone to expose how, “The writers know they’re up at the invisible podium to speak out about their journey to the brink of death (oh, yeah, and back).” Osgood speaks of learning how to be anorexic through books like Marya Hornbacher’s Wasted and is also critical of books like Thin (also a documentary) by Lauren Greenfield.

    I have shared similar issues with anorexia memoirs. I have read these memoirs throughout my journey with an eating disorder, albeit for different reasons. In times of relapse, I have felt compelled to pour over every anorexia memoir in my local library, in the same way that I would also gravitate towards calorie/ diet-oriented tabloid covers. I would absent-mindedly pour through this rhetoric, my eyes barely absorbing the words, but absorbing the material fulfilled some “fix” or satisfied some compulsion. During these periods of time, I was magnetized to all covers involving DIET in all caps and books whispering tales of people who have suffered from anorexia. I remember reading Wasted during a particularly bad period of my life. I don’t know what I wanted to get out of the book. I think I wanted to feel something… beauty, pain, remorse, guilt… anything to remind me of what this disease really was doing to me, anything besides numbness. The book definitely gave me a reality check, but I don’t know if it was a good one.

    In times of doing better, I have also read anorexia memoirs because I am a very meaning-focused, introspective person who is always trying to understand my experiences. A few years ago, I casually mentioned to my then-therapist that I had ordered Wintergirls and Wasted on Amazon, and she responded with an immediate, “No, no, no, you absolutely should not be reading that right now.” I would scoff at her, “Yes I can, I am in a good place, I will be fine.” I just wanted to understand, I told her. I wanted to make make meaning out of what I went through, I wanted to feel something about it. I would read it without being triggered, I was fine. Of course, my therapist was right. I would emerge from these dark, aesthetic, triggering memoirs in a daze, and it might take me between hours and days to re-orient myself to the reality of recovery.

    Osgood says that she “will write a book about anorexia without ever once recording someone’s weight.” She also writes, “The only way to understand anorexia… is to examine and then devalue its currency. It’s to strip it bare of its beautiful language and its glamorous, deathly aura.” I was totally on board with this. I couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say.

    And yet… I read this memoir scratching my head, because I saw how embedded the glamorization of anorexia was in her narrative. Even though she does not use specific weights, Osgood does mention specific behaviors, especially behaviors done in a residential treatment setting, which can be just as harmful as recording weights. In Osgood’s memoir, anorexia is still on this cultural pedestal, and she uses literary techniques to enforce a sense of drama and “misery,” the exact thing she is supposed to be critiquing.

    I had a visceral personal reaction to Osgood’s portrayal of anorexia, a reaction equivalent to what I experienced when I read books like Wasted. The whisper of never being sick enough, the author constantly trying to prove herself, the “I’ll get there, I’ll show them,” the dance of anorexia descending lower and lower and darker and darker spoke to something so raw inside of me. I felt this sense of competitiveness, a sick sense of comparison and camaraderie from Osgood’s narratives of her experiences with others in treatment. While her writing was amazing, I noticed something unhealthy was stirred inside of me. The memoir was not devaluing anorexia’s currency. Most of her narrative was very pro-anorexia, and then, at the end, “Oh yeah, and then I came back. I don’t deal with it anymore.” How does that differ so much from Wasted? If Wasted was a major instigator of the pro-ana movement, does Osgood realize that while her work might outwardly critique such memoirs, it is actually in danger of having the same effect?

    Osgood’s understanding of anorexia is predicated on certain assumptions: that anorexia (or the desire for anorexia- “wannarexia”) can be learned and reinforced through memoirs and “recovery” rhetoric and that anorexia is a cultural ideal that others aspire to attain.

    I would agree that some memoirs, especially Hornbacher’s notorious Wasted, give too many details and can be harmful for people who want to emulate her (or any) author’s experience with anorexia. The whole pro-ana movement is real and destructive. However, I don’t agree with Osgood’s conclusions in how to address the problem. In fact, I was startled to find them harsh and off base. She asserts that in “theorizing, eradication of stigma, and spreading awareness… we are still instructing our youths how to starve and we are making it look good.” Perhaps awareness and stigma movements can portray anorexia in a positive light, a “better” alternative to less culturally accepted outlets such as drug addiction or cutting, but is it necessary to throw out the baby with the bath water? Are eradicating stigma and awareness of eating disorder inherently maladaptive? Maybe what we should be doing is finding more creative and more constructive ways of telling others about eating disorders.

    For me, reducing stigma and speaking out about my struggles has been empowering and has helped me combat shame. Unlike Osgood, I never believed that anorexia was a cultural ideal, something that made me proud. In fact, for years, I was too ashamed to admit that I had an eating disorder. It wasn’t until I had met others who shared my struggles when I was able to put a label on what I had been experiencing. The anorexia label helped me feel less like an alien. I never knew anything about an eating disorder until I was forced into therapy by my mom after exhibiting symptoms of anorexia at age 13. Even then, I thought the concept of anorexia was complete bulls*** created by people who wanted me fat. Just because sharing tips of the trade is a problem doesn’t mean that people with eating disorders should go into their shells and isolate from narrating their struggles and seeking support. There is an abuse of the anorexia rhetoric available to the public, but why does it follow that all recovery-oriented rhetoric focused on reducing stigma and spreading awareness should be eliminated?

    What rhetoric needs to be eliminated is that which presents a certain “ideal” of anorexia and specific tips of how to attain that ideal. Osgood’s narrative critiques this ideal but imposes her own ideal of sorts into the text anyway. Osgood’s narrative is a very narrow, strict, ideal of anorexia that can be harmful for readers. Her book still sets her own experience as a “gold standard,” when in reality, many people with eating disorders are not hospitalized multiple times, or reach a dangerous point with severe physical symptoms, nor do they pride themselves on how sick they are. Osgood is critiquing something she is also perpetuating.

    Even more destructive is Osgood’s beliefs of how we should address the issue at hand, “Perhaps what we need to do is actually restore some of the myths about anorexia, namely, that it’s a problem of vanity, or resurrect some of the stigma that surrounds it, in hopes that we move away from radically accepting it.” I don’t see how producing more stigma and enforcing stereotypes are going to help anything. Personally, I have enough self-stigma and shame attached to my eating disorder that I would rather not have people walking around thinking that I developed my eating disorder because of vanity. I developed my eating disorder because of a lot of complicated factors, most importantly that I wanted to disappear. Vanity had little to do with it, and when you are deep in the thrust of an eating disorder, that matters less and less (at least, it did for me).

    I think her statement that we are “canonizing” people with anorexia is an exaggeration, and a harmful one at that. In my experience, I have been ridiculed by the way that I look and have been shamed in food-related situations. Anorexia is still culturally inappropriate and a mark of disgust. Even the thin-adoring media will post tabloid covers with pictures of people who have crossed the threshold of being too thin or anorexic, and those bodies are looked at in disgust. Are people with anorexia really being canonized, or are they put on display to be publicly ridiculed, like freaks at a freak show? It depends on the person, the community, and the context. Maybe a little, or neither, of both. I think more research must be conducted on the topic before such bold conclusions of “canonization” can be made. (Side note: stigma based on people who are a normal weight, overweight, or obese is also destructive and real, but I am going to leave fat shaming for another post… or two… or three and focus only on anorexia for the purposes of this post).

    One fundamental error is Osgood’s idea that anorexia must be seen as either “exciting” or “boring”… that either we glamorize it or portray it as stale and mundane. Why is that our only dichotomy available for anorexia memoirs? I don’t think that exciting vs. boring is a meaningful dichotomy to describe anorexia. In talking about the idea of eating disorder being boring to my therapist, she gave me one of those therapist looks, and said, “Do you really think eating disorders are boring? I think of it more as needless suffering and pain.” I think she’s right. Not just because she’s almost always right (although she often is), but Osgood overlooks this human element of suffering in her portrayal of anorexia. We are not just characters, protagonists, whose lives are either heroic or a sheer failure. We are not a set of literary devices or narratives, nor can we be reduced to learned behaviors, nor can we cut out our early experiences and concentrate (perhaps narcissistically) on the sufferer her or himself. People with anorexia have real struggles and real pain.

    Osgood, purposely, does not discuss issues that contributed to her eating disorder, and I think that does a disservice to people who have eating disorders who have been through a lot in their lives. Eating disorders both are and aren’t about the food. Yes, there are real effects of starvation that can spiral, and maybe some people will never learn what exactly contributed to the development of their eating disorders, but others do. I am one of those people who has learned a lot from examining how my eating disorder developed. My recovery involved eating, but it was also so much more than eating. There is so much more to anorexia than the anorexia rat race of competition at meal time. Not discussing those other issues is miscategorizing the nature of the disease.

    For me, therapy has not been about cultivating my “special” anorexic persona; it has been about discovering who I am without my eating disorder entirely. When I think of my eating disorder, I think of tragedy, pain, and suffering. I think of all the moments, all the years I missed. All of the years I didn’t feel safe being myself. Recovery was like opening up a world. That world was so much bigger than learning to eat ice cream when out with friends. It was more like a widening of my world. I remember being in treatment and staring at a collage on which I was supposed to draw in response to the prompt, “Who am I?” I just stared at it and asked my therapist, “Can I say that I like coffee? Does that count?” My therapist raised an eyebrow and told me I needed to come up with some other ideas.

    When I think of treatment and my personal journey in recovery, I think less about how I learned tips of the trade and more how I saw the brokenness inside of me and inside of my fellow sufferers. I think of the daily pain, crying, and anguish. Osgood avoided discussing her recovery journey in the book, much to my chagrin. It isn’t good, nor does it make sense, to romanticize something that almost killed you and somehow be completely against it by the last page. Her memoir is a very abbreviated, and narrow, view of anorexia, and her conclusions are puzzling. It also leaves gaps about how she made such a wide leap from point A to point B. I finished the book feeling betrayed– as if my emotions were preyed upon—and frustrated by double standards present in her memoir. I did not understand the implications of her critique.

    The problem I have is not with Osgood’s argument that memoirs can serve as how-to manuals. That is constructive and provocative. My first major issue is how her subsequent memoir plays into the critique she is making. Second, I take issue with her sweeping and bold conclusions that have the potential for harm. I am all for integrating science writing and memoir, but when conclusions are based on one person’s experience and are not backed up with much scientific rigor, and involve things like dismantling the system of de-stigmatizing and eating disorder awareness, that is an inappropriate use of her platform. Now, if someone wants to design a study that analyzes impact of memoirs on anorexia sufferers, or does a review of the literature on this topic, those would be meaningful next steps in hopes of drawing more accurate conclusions.
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  • M. E.
    5.0 out of 5 stars Must Read
    Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2014
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    This is an incredible book which changed how I will think about anorexia and books about anorexia forever. Kelsey Osgood is a terrific writer who uses her personal experience to explore the topic in a much broader context. I could not put this book down. I read it in one day, ignoring everyone around me.
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  • E. K. Morris
    5.0 out of 5 stars Not an ordinary 'ana' book
    Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2013
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    This book was really fascinating - it's less a straightforward memoir and more of a cultural history of anorexia. I particularly enjoyed the discussion of quantitative measurement. The author deliberately does not reveal her lowest weight or the number of calories consumed. This choice is embedded in a larger exploration about what numbers mean, to anorexics, to the medical profession, and to readers. The peculiar definitions of "success" and "failure", as determined by anorexic girls, also play large roles and also lead the author to interesting places as she explores the power of such definitions. A fascinating book.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • Abby
    2.0 out of 5 stars Kind of pretentious & unorganized
    Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2023
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    A lot of the book is spent on her rambling about why she thinks “Wasted” is so bad. I legitimately was on page 70 and I remember saying to myself “wow she’s STILL talking about this other book? Is the whole book just a personal review of Wasted?” shortly I found out after that it was mostly ramblings and random strings of thought, quotes from other books and generalizations about the competitive nature of eating disorders while simultaneously coming off as having this boastful attitude about being better than those who haven’t recovered yet. Strangely hypocritical in my opinion. The whole read felt very uncomfortable, and although it did have many truths about the online communities and their impacts and workings, I couldn’t see past the weird hostility in the narration by the author.
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  • Ella
    1.0 out of 5 stars Recitation of Other Anorexic Memoirs...
    Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2014
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    While Kelsey Osgood's writing and choice of wording are compelling and masterful, her account of her own foray into "wannarexia", or a not-quite-authentic, "wannabe" version of anorexia, seems aloof and detached. Her level of insight into this behavior - or its ersatz version - seems spotty. In short, she sounds like just another rich girl who sought to distinguish herself via the route of disordered eating. She seems disconnected from her experience, as if writing about it through Plexiglas. Much of this book seems rambling and pointless; I wish I'd known that prior to picking it up...
    7 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • KPS
    5.0 out of 5 stars Just what I needed to read
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 10, 2016
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    I just downloaded and finished reading this book in one evening and now I'm wondering why I waited so long to read it.
    Oh yeah, I know: It's the cover and title that made me think it was going to be yet another teenager's eating disorder misery memoir and to be honest I'm saturated with those.
    Turns out I'm about the same age as the author and we've come to a lot of the same conclusions about the problematic state of ED literature and narratives. It's been a long time since I read a book that echoed my own perceptions of EDs so much.
    Yet at the same time, Kelsey Osgood manages to provoke thought - and really shines a harsh light on the reality of anorexia, or at least anorexia's narrative construction and connotations in our culture. Obviously, there's the unfortunate way ED memoirs and even clinical texts are devoured by the sick, as part of their compulsion to be triggered, get sicker, stay sick. And so many of these books read to us, the anorexics, as a thinly disguised form of bragging or propaganda - they pay lipservice to recovery but concentrate on the gory details of sickness and act as a checklist for those of us comparing ourselves to other sufferers.
    But this book also critiques the clinical literature and popular media perceptions of anorexics as (pathologically) "good girls", perfectionists, prima ballerinas and dedicated athletes - an image that can make it hard to recover when you've been told your illness is just a manifestation of how good you are, how hard you try. Of course, exposure to actual fellow anorexics in a hospital setting or perhaps via the worst pro-ana online communities would quickly dispel that myth (we're a bunch of flawed, real, boring people with crap lives, not sainted willowy paragons of dieting success).

    The author writes from a personal and biased personal POV - as someone who romanticised and pursued anorexia before they even got sick and actually laments how easy and privileged her life was because it left her without a sense of depth and authenticity. A yearning for drama and aesthetic sadness she consciously sought to assuage with an eating disorder....I know, gross, right? But she is so open and honest and self-critical about this and who can say she wouldn't have wound up disordered at some point anyway - as I'm sick of re-iterating these days, eating disorders are not a lifestyle choice. And if Kelsey can be honest about it, and she makes a very convincing case, it's worth examining how we discuss and portray eating disorders in order to avoid promoting and incubating them in vulnerable populations.

    Oh and full disclosure: I was prompted to read this book in the grip of a relapse and it raised my spirits more than any inaccessibly cheery recovery self-help book I've found. Nice to hear some real-talk for a change. It was triggering though - for all it's stated aims not to be, there's plenty of descriptions of hospitalisations and sickness.
    I can see how this deviation from the story of all anorectics as innocent victims in favour of talking about how some girls *do* choose their disease or cling to it is uncomfortable reading but there's a lot of good stuff in the book.
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  • Lucinda Stern
    4.0 out of 5 stars A vivid and thought-provoking book.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 27, 2014
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    I enjoyed this book, and found its a thought provoking edition to eating disorder literature. Osgood explores both her own eating disorder, as well as some of the current internet culture around eating disorders, and some of the classic books on the subject. I found her thoughts on 'wannarexia' and the role of the internet interesting, and while I've read a number of literature reviews of books, this is one of the only books I've read that starts to explore the pro-ana movement etc. I felt this was a book best suited to those who have read a number of books on the subject, and particularly those that Osgood references very frequently, such as Hornbacher's Wasted, and Greenfield's Thin. My main concern about this book is that Osgood states rightly several times that a lot of memoirs of eating disorders, such as Wasted, are triggering for sufferers, and also act as unnofficial handbooks. Osgood states her intention not to do this, and in this, I think she fails. Had I read this books when I was unwell I'd have found some of the descriptions extremely triggering. Osgood has a great gift for painting a vivid picture with words, and describes acute anorexia numerous times during the book, whilst stating that she will not disclose weights or foods, or tips. However if you describe someone as covered in lanugo because they are so thin, it doesn't really matter that you don't state the weight of that person, or what they eat, the reader is going to have a pretty vivid mental image, and for some this will be triggering. I wouldn't recommend this as a first book on the subject, nor for someone in the grips of an eating disorder. I think those who are secure in their own recovery may find it of interest, as will those who are interested in the general cannon of ED literature. Those who can't understand the anorexic mindset, or why someone would do this to themselves might also find it insightful.
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  • scar
    3.0 out of 5 stars Somewhere between a memoir and a study
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 30, 2018
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    I didn’t agree 100% with everything Osgood said – there was a little too much application of one person’s experience as a general concept, and perhaps not quite enough self-reflection. But if you’re looking for a book that straddles the genres of memoirs and academic texts, this is a good one. Not quite Wasted material, but on the approach to it. If you’re already quite well-read on the subject, however, this probably won’t give you anything new.
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  • Autolytica
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent insight, brutal and honest
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 28, 2015
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    This is a really good thought-provoking critique for anyone who is guilty of lapping up self-indulgent anorexia stories (using them for triggering, or thinspiration), and for anyone seeking an honest, un-pretty insight into the disease. It explores the phenomena of how bringing EDs into the light, in books, online, etc may not be helping people avoid becoming ill, and may in fact sometimes encourage it.

    I don't think she writes with self-pity, far from it, she is brutally honest about how she planned her path into the disease, and the familiar ambivalence about her motives for it. Even her motives for writing certain details about her illness and treatment, and trying to omit others. Well done for addressing these things! I am a long time 'recovered' from anorexia (though not from binge eating) and yet I still get a secret kick out of reading ED stories (much like a binge, to be honest). In particular I really related to the shocking competitive, conspiratorial and sabotaging behaviour of anorexics in treatment centres (which are horrific and made me worse, I am sure). Thank God I was anorexic, and recovered, in the days before mobile phones and internet. My advice? Read this, its really flippin' good, and get away from the pro-ana world.
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  • T F
    5.0 out of 5 stars ... and unusual discussion of anorexia -- the prose is fantastic and the book overall gave me chills
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 6, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    thoughtful and unusual discussion of anorexia -- the prose is fantastic and the book overall gave me chills, as it is not (only) a memoir, it is a reflective depiction of the true horror of the disease.
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