Product Description
“[Jennifer Hendricks] … fought to be cured of anorexia nervosa. But as the diary she kept shows, a widespread lack of understanding about eating disorders and scattergun treatment programs make the battle almost insurmountable . . . a sorrow to read.” –The New York Times “Patients’ voices can all too easily be forgotten in the world of mental health care, but Jenny’s voice rings strong. Through this earnest and captivating exposure, her father succeeds in keepi… More >>
Slim to None : A Journey Through the Wasteland of Anorexia Treatment
That’s all I can think of after plowing through this book. As someone who was there once silenced her granddaughter’s complaints – “There were no fat thighs in Auschwitz. I was there.” I bet there wasn’t any anorexia, either.
Rating: 1 / 5
I wanted to read this book since I’ve enjoyed such memoirs as Dry, Wasted, and Drinking: A love story. But page after page about a self-absorbed brat with a pathetically devoted and brainwashed father enabling her 14-year suicide was disgusting, frustrating, and depressing.
I understand that anorexia is not a choice, but I don’t think this book is about an anoretic. It’s more about someone with borderline personality disorder and how effectively that can wear on people’s — even professionals’ — patience. And how effectively it can manipulate the willing, even in getting them to publish sappy memoirs posthumously. I agree that the book brings up ethical questions about psychiatric care that need to be addressed. It made me wish someone would just take her to a shelter and put her to sleep so I wouldn’t have to read any more of her whining, false-memory-spewing nonsense.
Rating: 1 / 5
I’m sorry, but there is nooooooooooooo way this book is better than Wasted. As a memoir junkie, I read pretty much everything that comes out, and as an ED sufferer I of course read every ED memoir. I could barely even make it through this one; the only reason I did is that I paid for it in hardcover. It is ridiculously trite, annoying, and the dialogue is almost laughably bad. It’s just absurd; I rolled my eyes so much I felt like I could twirl pasties with them.
Rock on with your bad self, Marya Hornbacher.
Rating: 1 / 5
I was really looking forward to reading this book but was extremely disappointed. I found myself saying out loud “come on that couldn’t have really have happened” . I have NEVER met a therapist that had the attitudes, uses the langauge and act as unprofessional as almost all of hers did. It was so long, dry and boring plus VERY sappy. I found it very torturous to read. I couldn’t wait for it to just end!
Rating: 1 / 5
I wanted to read this book and love it, but I simply couldn’t get past the poor writing and VERY stiff and cliched “dialogue.” Jennifer’s diary entries are compelling, but none of the rest rang true for me. I just don’t believe that she said things like, “Will I finally see the sun?” shortly before she died. I felt like I was reading the script for a Lifetime TV Movie about anorexia, not the story of a real woman’s life.
Rating: 1 / 5