To Die For

by Carol Lee

Standing on the other side of the bed, side-on, the change in her is shocking. Many stones dropped since the last time we met. Her skin is grey, her expression guarded, defensive, her eyes avoiding mine. I hesitate. We have been here before with her illness so many times. I sense this will have to be different. This may be her last chance. . .

When Carol Lee’s cherished god-daughter Emma descends into a long and dangerous battle with anorexia, Carol is the only one she trusts enough to let into her tormented world.

Interspersed with revealing and poignant entries from Emma’s diaries, To Die For shows intensely, and ultimately joyfully, how the power of trust and shared memories can confront even this most cruel of illnesses.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Biography

285 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

39 books in one year. The real mystery is who wrote these books?

Reviews

[Sara Marotta · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I was a very lonely child and
it's funny but the first word that
comes to my head is "starved". I
felt starved of affection, starved of
love and I felt that it wasn't OK to
ask for it. Maybe there was a sense
that if I deserved it, it would be
there. There must be something
l'd done which meant I didn't
deserve it. !!!!!

[Traceylee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why

This story about Emma a teenager who has a eating disorder.This one woman gave her the extra love she was not getting from her mom and took care of Emma

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carol's insight and understanding of anorexia was better than I thought it was going to be from somebody with no professional knowledge into the field, and not having suffered herself. Also considering it was late 90s when it all occurred. However, the way some parts are worded by Carol, making it sound as though anorexia is a choice, and even once by Emma herself, that annoyed me. It is not a conscious choice, nor once you are in the depths do you 'choose' to go on, it feels like there is no other way, you no longer know what normal is. Each individual is very different, though obviously there are similarities but I felt some parts of the book were inferring that the path Emma's illness took is the path that most anorexia sufferers take.
I also greatly disagree with Carol saying that 'Nor, from where I was standing, is anorexia a mental illness, for I did not consider Emma to be paranoid or mad'. Anorexia IS a mental illness, a very complicated one at that. One that cannot be solved by receiving 'enough attention', nor is it caused by a lack of attention the sufferer feels they want/need, which I felt Emma was putting across at times.
One last thing I had a problem with is what Emma said in her afterword: 'Anorexia was a journey for me and it was something I needed to go through and was waiting to happen for a very long time before it did'. It just makes it sound too simplistic, anorexia is not something anybody NEEDS to go through.
I know there are so many individual differences, I just felt at times this book was putting every sufferer into neat little boxes of explanations, which cannot be done.
Though not one of the best eating disorder books I have read, overall it was well written from somebody caring for someone going through an eating disorder.

[Leah · Rating 2 out of 5]

To Die For, a book written by Carol Lee is a very honest book. Carol is the godmother of Emma. The book depicts Emma's treacherous journey as she battles her anorexia. It is intense, sad, as well as insightful. To Die For has real, unedited entries that have been taken straight out of Emma's many diaries, and will make you bite your nails, or melt your heart.
When I picked this book I was very excited to start reading. It is rare I enjoy a non-fiction book and sadly, it is still very rare. Honestly this book is extremely boring. There were times I felt myself just reading the words and not absorbing anything. It was very difficult for me to finish this book and when I did it was a relief. It was a very interesting topic and a great idea, but it was poorly pursued. The writing was dry and lulled me to sleep. I was expecting more factual information or focus on Emma's emotions. Although it helped me realize what Anorexia does to relationships and vice versa, it was still lacking details. I felt as though the book was written by a child whom was trying to write like an adult. It had some facts but was jumpy and confusing.
I would not recommend this book to anyone, it is boring and not what you the inside cover describes it as. I still have hope when it comes to picking more non-fiction and i plan to read more books on anorexia.

[K · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was very disappointed in this book, I would have liked more insights and illumination of eating disorders. Instead it is a very subjective and often repetetive-feeling story about the relationship between a Carol Lee and her young friend Emma.
I think it could have been a useful exploration of what it is like to know and care for someone with an eating disorder and how bulimia, anorexia and compulsive eating can co-exist but it seems to fall short of any meaningful analysis. I'm not really sure Emma's diary entries add much to the story and I feel she could have written a more revealing and useful book herself. Also, as with so many books about eating disorders her recovery is presented as a deus-ex-machina and I wish there was as much attention given to the process of getting well as there is on getting sick.

I really can't find much value in this book. As an ED sufferer I gleaned no insight into my condition or tips into dealing with it. I can imagine that non-sufferers would get little from it too. In fact it just seems to emphasise how difficult it is to relate to someone with an eating disorder.

The mentions of numbers, binging and purging might be triggering to some readers - Triggering is about all I got from it!

[Thelan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book on a very difficult and complex issue. This being a very personal account of an individual who has a loved one suffering from anorexia i think the author did a good job of covering the chaos, confusion, emotional distress that all parties go through when one has an illness that is, let's say unpredictable at best. The world definitely needs more first hand accounts of people who have gone through and overcome in one way or another issues that are mostly kept in the dark. The parts i found most fascinating were the diary entries of Emma, the girl struggling with anorexia. The reason i gave it three not five stars is simply because i felt the book could have been more focused and less detailed in parts, details that could have been left out or were repeated several times. It's interesting to note that the author comments on anorexia being an emotional not a mental illness. I am not a professional but i do not see a difference between the two. The mind, brain if you will is what is responsible for our emotions, yes, we do have choices we make daily, however, when our mental well being is imbalanced due to a number of external or internal or both factors i would call that a mental illness.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book about anorexia. It fascinated me like a car crash does, but also annoyed the crap out of me.



I cannot decide if anorexia is a real problem to the sufferers or something self created and hugely self indulgent.

Or both



Anorexia is a 'disease' which affects almost entirelt Westerners of middel class and above. When food is about survival, no one has the luxury to starve themselves out of choice. It is only when there is an abundance that what I think of as silly girls can choice to use it as a weapon.



Anorexia is for me the ultimate act of passive aggresiveness. By not eating and thereofre really landing up at death's door, the sufferers wield so much power over everyone who loves them. That they need to is almost as scary as the fact that they do.



I am a little unsympathitic towards anorexics, and this book just reaffirmed that irritation.



I do howvever realise that for someone to need to do all of that and risk their own lives for power and attention needs addressing. In this book the sufferer, when on the road to recovery, says that lots of people have hard childhoods and not all of them starves themselves.



Exactly!

[Zemmiphobe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book had some insightful things to say, but it could have been a bit better. It would have been nicer to hear more from Emma's point of view. It would also have been nice to hear a bit from her mothers point of view. The author makes a point towards the end of stating that anorexia is by no means the mothers fault, as does Emma herself in the last couple pages, though the entire book focuses a lot on how her mother failed her and how this failure lead to the illness. Meanwhile, the authors relationship with Emma was unrealistically flawless. I feel like perhaps her mother deserved the chance to defend herself a little bit and perhaps give a less biased recollection of the authors relationship with her daughter. There were some very insightful parts and even a quote I added to the Goodreads repertoire, but overall the book could have been much better... or presented differently. It's not a book on anorexia as much as it is a book about a woman who once knew a girl with anorexia.

[Liralen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author is in an interesting position here -- neither patient nor parent (nor, say, doctor), as is typical in this sort of memoir. She seems to be in -- especially as regards Emma's care -- a sort of grey area, without much power or (legal) responsibility but with enough history to make a difference.

She displays a decent level of knowledge and understanding, although her opinions freely colour descriptions of the other responsible parties in Emma's life, and it can be hard to tell how much is fact and how much depends on perspective. There's a fair amount of distance, too, both in the telling (relatedly, I'm not convinced that diary entries work well enough to tell Emma's side of the story) and in that, due to the grey area, the author simply wasn't involved much of a time. That's not a dig -- it would be fair to say that she went well beyond what might be expected.

All in all an okay read, but very middle-of-the-road.

[Ana Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a relatively insightful book about a relationship with a girl who suffers with an eating disorder. Viewed from her outsider perspective you feel her internal struggle as she tip-toes around Emma, constantly reviewing things to say in her mind before the words leave her lips as Emma teeters on the brink of self destruction. Knowing how to react to Emma becomes a trial and error softly softly affair so as not to make her condition worse. Scattered with extracts from Emma's journals this is difficult to read in places as it's pretty emotional. AK xoxo

[Gizalba · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my opinion this is the best biographical book I have read about an eating disorder, in terms of insight, information and detail. It includes diary extracts the sufferer wrote, alongside the commentary written by her close guardian. This sufferer experienced polar ends of eating disorders, rapidly alternating between anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and compulsive eating. Therefore anyone who has suffered one, two or all three of these disorders could probably relate to this book.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book did not hold my attention at all, my mind kept wandering. I do feel guilty about not finishing the book as it must be an awful illness to have to bear and unable to control.

[Sue · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am between feeling sorry for this girl and irritated. the book so far is ok, but I expected more.