Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 A great read September 23, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I'll be the first to admit that I do not read very often. Rarely does a book captivate me in a way where I feel I cannot put the book down. I've read the book three times already. I could relate to her in many ways and maybe that is why I found her sarcasim in the book very humorous. Although she doesn't offer any answers, that was never her intention. She didn't know what the answers were. All she knew is that in the end you've got to make a choice to live or die. She chose to live and get help. Anorexia didn't start because she came from a bad home or something tragic happened to trigger it. Carrie simply fell into the addiction of losing weight, counting calories, and greuling exercise routine. What for? Hell if she knows. I absolutely loved it and wish she would write more books. I love her style of writing.
A first for mee! January 12, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book captivated me for one reason: I could relate. I have read so many ED books that find the underlying problem of eating disorders to be either sexual abuse or some other triggering trauma. What about us that really don't have a reason. That have loving families and friends. This girl seemed to one of those. Like me. So it was refreshing to find out that I am not just nuts, but that there are others like me out there.
comparable to Wasted, by Marya Hornbacher, NOT the same, but comparable July 5, 2005
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
SO GOOD. couldn't put it down. eloquently and passionately written. SO accurate.
 Has the potential to be highly triggering March 6, 2005
19 out of 28 found this review helpful
The author takes an intellectual approach but never provides the reader with any suggestion that she has real insight into the underlying issues that undoubtedly drove her to an eating disorder in the first place. In fact, very little real emotion is expressed throughout this rather straightforward, almost dry read. The book is filled with descriptions of symptomatic behavior and weight numbers (although she doesn't give her height, she might as well, as it's easy to figure out in context). She is far more interested in describing her concerns and behaviors with food, calories and weight than she is in delving into the issues which might have brought her to the point of near-fatal illness. Compounding her eating disorder is OCD, adding to an undoubted biochemical influence. Because of the OCD it is likely that the anorexia nervosa is secondary and is actually more of a food phobia directly associated with OCD than it is anorexia nervosa per se. The behaviors and the consequences of those behaviors are, of course, the same.
Regardless of the disorder's actual diagnosis, phobias don't exist without a stimulus. Something initiates them. Even to the casual reader of this book, issues pop out: enmeshment with parents, perfectionism, leaving home, fear of taking on adult responsibilities, etc., etc., and yet Carrie Arnold only briefly glosses over these if even directly mentioning them at all. I hope she has actually addressed her issues in therapy.
I suspect that far from the optimism she radiates at the end of the book, when she is proclaiming recovery, that in actuality this young woman is far from finished with dealing with her issues or her phobias....
 Intelligent February 10, 2005
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
I came to this book knowing little of eating disorders, and in that I seem to differ from all the previous reviewers. This book is one intellectual's look at the eating disorder that nearly took her life away. Have no doubt of the books intellectualism, Arnold ability to objectively analyze the situation she finds herself in pervades the book. She does not seek pity for her suffering or a parade for her recovery, but simply understanding. Understanding for both herself, and for people such as myself that really have no idea what eating disorders can do.
This book is very approachable. Fortunately, Arnold has written her analysis in a simple, straightforward way making it very approachable. The book is of moderate length, making it an easily digestible book. The only troubles I had with the book were the horrors that I'm learning are the truth of an eating disorder. But those only serve to strengthen the tale.
To say it simply, if you too would like to begin to understand, this book is a great place to start.
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