Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia

Sunday Times journalist Freeman (House of Glass) chronicles her struggles with anorexia in this illuminating memoir. At 14, a classmate referred to Freeman’s body as “normal,” which sent her spiraling into disordered eating: “A black tunnel yawned open inside me, and I tumbled down it, Alice into Nowhereland.” To better understand the disorder that gripped her for more than two decades, Freeman interviews patients she came to know during her own hospitalizations, talks to doctors about treatment, and traces links between eating disorders and autism, depression, and—rather dubiously—gender dysphoria, which she suggests may be rooted in body hate the same way eating disorders are. Freeman also posits that anorexia is, in part, a way for girls to rage against enforced passivity: “It isn’t really about the food.... It’s about trying to say something without having to speak; it’s about the fear of sexualization and fear of womanhood; it’s about sadness and anger and the belief you’re not allowed to be sad and angry because you’re supposed to be perfect.” The most poignant aspects of the book, though, are personal, as when Freeman recounts her lack of close friends in adolescence. For readers wishing to understand this disease, Freeman offers valuable (if sometimes questionable) insight. The result is affecting, though uneven. Agent: Georgia Garrett, Rogers, Coleridge & White. (Apr.)