Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia
From Hadley Freeman, bestselling author of House of Glass, comes a searing memoir about her experience as an anorexic and her journey to recovery.

In 1995, Hadley Freeman wrote in her diary: “I just spent three years of my life in mental hospitals. So why am I crazier than I was before????”

From the ages of fourteen to seventeen, Freeman lived in psychiatric wards after developing anorexia nervosa. Her doctors informed her that her body was cannibalizing her muscles and heart for nutrition, but they could tell her little else: why she had it, what it felt like, what recovery looked like. For the next twenty years, Freeman lived as a “functioning anorexic,” grappling with new forms of self-destructive behavior as the anorexia mutated and persisted.

Anorexia is one of the most widely discussed but least understood mental illnesses. In a brilliant narrative that combines personal experience with deep reporting, Freeman delivers an incisive and bracing work that details her experiences with anorexia-the shame, fear, loneliness and rage-and how she overcame it. She interviews doctors to learn how treatment for the illness has changed since she was hospitalized and what new discoveries have been made about the illness, including its connection to autism, OCD, and metabolic rate. She learns why the illness always begins during adolescence and how this reveals the difficulties for girls to come of age. Freeman tracks down the women with whom she was hospitalized and reports on how their recovery has progressed over decades.

Good Girls is an honest and hopeful story of resilience that offers a message to the nearly 30 million Americans who suffer from eating disorders: Life can be enjoyed, rather than merely endured.
1141652530
Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia
From Hadley Freeman, bestselling author of House of Glass, comes a searing memoir about her experience as an anorexic and her journey to recovery.

In 1995, Hadley Freeman wrote in her diary: “I just spent three years of my life in mental hospitals. So why am I crazier than I was before????”

From the ages of fourteen to seventeen, Freeman lived in psychiatric wards after developing anorexia nervosa. Her doctors informed her that her body was cannibalizing her muscles and heart for nutrition, but they could tell her little else: why she had it, what it felt like, what recovery looked like. For the next twenty years, Freeman lived as a “functioning anorexic,” grappling with new forms of self-destructive behavior as the anorexia mutated and persisted.

Anorexia is one of the most widely discussed but least understood mental illnesses. In a brilliant narrative that combines personal experience with deep reporting, Freeman delivers an incisive and bracing work that details her experiences with anorexia-the shame, fear, loneliness and rage-and how she overcame it. She interviews doctors to learn how treatment for the illness has changed since she was hospitalized and what new discoveries have been made about the illness, including its connection to autism, OCD, and metabolic rate. She learns why the illness always begins during adolescence and how this reveals the difficulties for girls to come of age. Freeman tracks down the women with whom she was hospitalized and reports on how their recovery has progressed over decades.

Good Girls is an honest and hopeful story of resilience that offers a message to the nearly 30 million Americans who suffer from eating disorders: Life can be enjoyed, rather than merely endured.
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Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia

Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia

by Hadley Freeman

Narrated by Hadley Freeman

Unabridged — 7 hours, 54 minutes

Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia

Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia

by Hadley Freeman

Narrated by Hadley Freeman

Unabridged — 7 hours, 54 minutes

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Overview

From Hadley Freeman, bestselling author of House of Glass, comes a searing memoir about her experience as an anorexic and her journey to recovery.

In 1995, Hadley Freeman wrote in her diary: “I just spent three years of my life in mental hospitals. So why am I crazier than I was before????”

From the ages of fourteen to seventeen, Freeman lived in psychiatric wards after developing anorexia nervosa. Her doctors informed her that her body was cannibalizing her muscles and heart for nutrition, but they could tell her little else: why she had it, what it felt like, what recovery looked like. For the next twenty years, Freeman lived as a “functioning anorexic,” grappling with new forms of self-destructive behavior as the anorexia mutated and persisted.

Anorexia is one of the most widely discussed but least understood mental illnesses. In a brilliant narrative that combines personal experience with deep reporting, Freeman delivers an incisive and bracing work that details her experiences with anorexia-the shame, fear, loneliness and rage-and how she overcame it. She interviews doctors to learn how treatment for the illness has changed since she was hospitalized and what new discoveries have been made about the illness, including its connection to autism, OCD, and metabolic rate. She learns why the illness always begins during adolescence and how this reveals the difficulties for girls to come of age. Freeman tracks down the women with whom she was hospitalized and reports on how their recovery has progressed over decades.

Good Girls is an honest and hopeful story of resilience that offers a message to the nearly 30 million Americans who suffer from eating disorders: Life can be enjoyed, rather than merely endured.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Though there is no shortage of memoirs about anorexia, the sharp storytelling, solid research and gentle humor in Good Girls make it especially appealing. And Ms. Freeman has some good advice for parents." —Wall Street Journal

"Riveting" The New York Times

"This searing memoir from a recovered anorexic, which explores the warped thinking around the illness, should be required reading....Freeman is a brave, illuminating and meticulous reporter and uses her experience wisely."The Guardian

"Freeman evokes the mental processes of anorexia extraordinarily well, and her candor will make a great many people feel less lonely...It’s impassioned, a sort of manifesto, and we should take it to heart." Los Angeles Review of Books

"Blending autobiography and journalism, Freeman sheds light on a dark subject – anorexia and self-hatred among teenage girls. Written with her trademark verve and wit, Good Girls is sure to provoke debate—and maybe some serious thought as well." Katha Pollitt, Poet and The Nation columnist

"Recounting her years of anorexia with uncommon honesty, Hadley Freeman makes a powerful case for finding the will to live." Lauren Collins, author of When In French

"For parents of girls with eating disorders, this is vital, revelatory, and deeply moving." —Caitlin Moran, New York Times bestselling author of More Than a Woman

"Hadley Freeman writes unsparingly, harrowingly and profoundly about her life with this disorder, which feels so brutal and unnavigable for sufferers and their families. But she also writes with hope. An intensely vivid memoir that turns out to be an escape story." — Marina Hyde, author of What Just Happened?

"Someone who fought the beast and won uses her own experience and thorough research to explain what anorexia is—and isn’t... Freeman's insights are essential... If you need to understand anorexia, look no further. This is the book for you." Kirkus Reviews (starred)

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2023-01-24
Someone who fought the beast and won uses her own experience and thorough research to explain what anorexia is—and isn’t.

Longtime Guardian columnist Freeman, author of House of Glass, is a talented writer and researcher whose personal history with anorexia as a young woman required numerous hospitalizations. She remembers her trigger moment with absolute clarity. It was just after her 14th birthday when a classmate with very skinny legs said, "I wish I was normal like you." Having reconnected with several women she met in hospitals along the way, she pulls in their experiences, as well, explaining that "anorexia was a bomb inside us, just waiting for the right time, the single flame, the trigger." The author’s thorough explanation of the disease and its treatment completely debunks many myths—e.g., “all that was needed to cure anorexia was for Kate Moss to eat some chips.” A chapter called “The Theories” is a simultaneously hilarious and horrifying three-page poem that lays out “an incomplete list of reasons doctors, therapists and outsiders have given over the years for why I became anorexic.” Freeman is sharp, funny, and literate. In discussing her school reading during that transitional 14th summer, she writes, "I don't blame John Fowles for my anorexia, but he did make an effective soundtrack for it." She also labels Roald Dahl "the Anna Wintour of children's literature when it comes to fatphobia" and shares crucial life wisdom from Spaceballs and Lethal Weapon. With several sources indicating an "epidemic of extreme anxiety among girls"—a 2019 study showed rates of self-harm had tripled since 2000—Freeman's insights are essential. For mothers of daughters in crisis, she offers a wise message: “Get professional help as soon as you can, and don't become her caregiver."

If you need to understand anorexia, look no further. This is the book for you.

Product Details

BN ID: 2940176824988
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 04/18/2023
Edition description: Unabridged
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