Reviewed in Publisher’s Weekly

May 10, 2004

De Pree, a poet and French professor at Atlantas Agnes Scott College, has struggled with anorexia for most of her life. In this sensitive memoir, she describes her experiences with the disease and the related behavior patterns that have threatened to disrupt (sometimes successfully) her work and personal life. De Pree’s illness began at age 13, after her grandmothers death, and continued for nearly 20 years. Although she was an excellent student and skilled violinist in high school, her daily life was overshadowed by anorexia. Starving allowed me to create an interim space between innocence and experience, between being a girl and being a woman. De Pree’s difficulties continued when she left home for college and during her stints studying overseas. There were brief periods when she gained weight, but De Pree’s was always aware she was hiding in a glass box in which she felt safe. Only after the birth of her second child in 1999 did she start undergoing psychoanalysis and taking medication, finally beginning to learn why she was so comfortable as an anorexic. Less graphic than other anorexic autobiographies, this memoir is nevertheless quite moving, thanks to De Pree’s eloquent writing. She focuses on her feelings, rather than chronicling her diet and exercise, which should help her work resonate with both readers familiar with anorexia and those helping anorexics.

Publisher's Weekly
May 10, 2004