Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia

by Hadley Freeman

From Hadley Freeman, bestselling author of House of Glass , comes a “riveting” ( The New York Times ) memoir about her experience as an anorexic and her journey to recovery.

In 1995, Hadley Freeman wrote in her “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 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. Through “sharp storytelling, solid research and gentle humor” ( The Wall Street Journal ), 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 Life can be enjoyed, rather than merely endured.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Mental Health, Biography, Audiobook, Psychology, Feminism

288 pages, Hardcover

First published March 7, 2023

About the author

Hadley Freeman (born 1978) is a columnist and writer for The Guardian, who also contributes to the UK version of Vogue. She was born in New York to Jewish parents, and attended Oxford University. Her first book, The Meaning of Sunglasses, was published in 2008.

Reviews

[Bea]

tl;dr A memoir on Freeman’s experience with anorexia as a white, middle-class, cis woman, platforming transphobic discourse.

Initially, I was enjoying the book, resonating with a lot of Freeman’s remarks about anorexia that were validating coming from someone who had experienced it firsthand. However, chapter 7 diminished the value of the book majorly. Early on in the book, Freeman acknowledges that even specialists can’t conclude on definitive facts about the causes of anorexia, yet she proceeds to dedicate an entire chapter to theorising on gender dysphoria. Passing off opinions as objective facts, Freeman explores some very problematic views that promote a transphobic ideology. For one, suggesting that girls with gender dysphoria are actually just avoiding/fearing the transition into womanhood. Though is true that eating disorders within LGBTQ+ people are disproportionately higher, this cannot be equated with confusion or internalised misogyny. By giving a platform to discourse that has little basis in solid evidence, Freeman depreciates from how well-written and comprehensive the book was elsewhere. Even the sources she takes from trans women are contrived to support her own views, i.e. those that suggest trans women only transition to fulfil a desire to be sexually subordinate to men.

This recurs with her exploration of autism and eating disorders, acknowledging the limitations of existing studies but including them anyway. Deciding whether or not to include debates like these should be considered extensively, and in cases where they risk perpetuating unhelpful ideologies, their inclusion was not in the best interests of people suffering with eating disorders.

Aside from this, the perspective Freeman writes from is important to remember. For one, Freeman comes from a very privileged background that gave her access to private inpatient care. This clearly demarcates her experience from the majority of anorexia patients who don’t have this kind of privilege. Her exploration of anorexia is also focused on the archetypal characteristics, which is no fault of her own, but it’s important to consider that this book isn’t going to provide diverse coverage of the disorder.

[Andrea · Rating 1 out of 5]

Came for insight from a fellow ED survivor, left in horror at TERF nonsense

[Ocean · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am terribly torn with this one. On one hand it is a very well written, informative memoir/essay, done with proper research and sources. The author talked with many professionals dealing with eating disorder recovery as well as former friends, patients, doctors .. She is very clearly a good journalist, she's apt with words and although this material as most on the subject can always be triggering, it's void of almost any numbers and has an hopeful ending. The author has waited to write this book, she's way past her ill days and it gives to her story a clearer, more balanced vision than most similar books I have read can claim, but and it is a big "but", there is a whole chapter that discusses gender disphoria that made my skin crawl.
It's such a shame because of course there is a paralel to be made between gender dysphoria and young anorexic girls wanting to supress their femininity but while there is a common suffering there, they simply cannot be treated in the same way. To be transgender is not to be sick, it is not a mental illness and to claim that "it could be the new anorexia" makes zero sens to me. The two do not equate at all.
the author says "Many girls are terrified of becoming a woman and its not because they should all be boys" I think some woman conflate the idea they had of what womanhood entailed and how they didn't want to become it with what transgender people genuinely feel. It is a very privileged and cisgendered thought to believe that a transgender man "wants to be so" because they don't want to be a woman. This is an issue that has to be turned around. Concerned parties have repeated countless times that they feel as man and therefore may want their bodies to align with what is commonly perceived as so. It does not stem from a hatred of femininity or why would there be trans women ? And only 1% of transitioners regret their choice so to convince oneself that trans people don't know what they feel, what they are, and that the fact more people are now coming out as trans wrongly is pure fantasy. I don't know any trans man who believes that they will aquire the status of a cis man by transitioning either. Let alone ones that want to transition for that reason.

I agree that in a perfect society there most likely would be no need for hormonal treatment and reassignment surgeries but we don't live in that society yet.
which is why we must fight against stupid gender roles and still support transgender people and trans kids in this instance while we move forward by giving them access to fair treatment. This is dangerous talk in particular in a day and age where transgender people are being targeted across the globe and put in life threatening situations. When bills are being passed in the US to remove all access to treatment for trans people if their doctor decides they do not want to care for them because of their gender identity, etc..

The author makes a good point when she discusses the after affects of puberty blockers that can cause reduction in bone density and can affect sexual functions but shouldn't we prefer this to higher rates of suicide amonsts these kids ?
For me the answer is yes. Just like I will always be pro choice because taking away this type of care (affirming therapy/abortions) will do more harm than good.
In my opinion this discussion was very much out of place and misinformed. It would have been nice to discuss the matter with someone concerned first hand.

The author also makes a point of distinguishing between the way anorexics and bulimics think differently I'm paraphrasing but: "the difference between bulimics and anorexics is that the latter group wishes to look ill" I can promise you a whole lot of bulimics want that too. It is not only the control bulimics envy from anorexics. I find some of the ideas outdated also, there is no mention of atypical anorexia and a focus on looking emaciated which of course changes a lot of things both physically and mentally but it would be good to mention that a lot of those symptoms are due to denutrition and not emaciation (feeling cold all the time for exemple). These are ideas that contribute to people not being diagnosed early and not taken seriously when they aren't yet skeletal. Not everybody begin their illness at a lower body weight..

Besides these issues I really enjoyed the exploration of female hunger, in this scenario, turned against oneself and I thought it painted a really accurate picture of both what it is like to suffer from an eating disorder and to know someone who does. On a grander scale I think this book can be really helpful to anyone who suffers from acute anxiety and who needs to feel understood but maybe not craddled too much either. This is a truly raw exploration of mental illness.
The OCD chapters were also really interesting and there also is a bit about substance abuse.

Those retrograde ideas on gender are really a shame. It's an otherwise outstanding book but I will not further engage with the author as I do not wish to read any more of this kind of materials and/or encourage the aforementioned ideas, or spread them.

PS: it's not just that, the author has written articles about affirming therapy that upset me to no end. She also argues on twitter that she has no gender identity bc she simply was born woman and refuses to aknowledge cis as a helpful and needed word for topic related conversations..

[beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cried a few times whilst reading this, because it's an upsetting story at times that reflects a cruel and stark reality. Many who have experienced mental illness across their lives can relate to Hadley Freeman describing her adolescent desperation, anger, and self-destruction. I, who has never experienced anorexia nervosa, but does experience obsessive-compulsive disorder—just as Freeman herself has across her life—related strongly to her reflections on guilt, obsessiveness, shame, and the unending quest to feel some semblance of control in a world restricted by a set of self-imposed rules.

I was surprised, even morbidly amused, when she'd occasionally describe behaviour taken straight from the scrapbook of my own life: turning taps off with your elbow so you don't need to wash your hands again, did you say? I'm a professional in this sport. When I was a child and twirling around, having to spin back the other way an equal amount of times to 'unravel' myself? Of course, after all, one has to be sure you haven't accidentally trapped yourself in an alternate time continuum! That is to say, though the behaviour was not always familiar to me, the distorted thought processes, the ugly emotions, and the inability to give yourself a break offered me some insight into Freeman's anorexic worldview. It doesn't sound like a pleasant place to be.

Structured roughly in chronological order, we follow young Hadley from the moment her mind breaks in two (I still remember my own mind altering practically overnight), through memories of her time in various hospitals over her teenage years, through to her university and later adult life, and finally her reflections on recovery and her current experience. Peppered throughout are the stories of other women she knew in hospital, some of which made me sob; interviews with professionals on current research into anorexia in terms of treatment and causes, and how this understanding developed from when Freeman was ill; alongside this, we also see the author's own insights on being a girl and now a woman, and how this uniquely relates to anorexia's expression and existence (it's perhaps the most gendered mental illness there is). Obsessive-compulsive disorder and drug addiction are also discussed.

Like most everyone else, I came into this book with certain confusion about anorexia and its causes. Was it simply an embodied reflection of our society's obsession with female thinness? Are models, and more importantly, those that hire and sell their images to us, entirely to blame? What do anorexic girls mean when they say they 'feel/look fat', when this so clearly isn't the case? Is their actual visual perception distorted, as well as their psychological interpretations? How does one recover, and if some do, why don't they all?

Though research into this area is still ongoing, and ultimately, it's not entirely understood why some recover and some do not, or even what causes eating disorders more broadly, there was still a lot of knowledge to be gained. Girls and young women with anorexia know they are incredibly underweight, Freeman tells us, but they want to look ill. Once this clicks, it becomes easier to understand the general rationale of the illness; if it's about the state of being ill itself, then it does become about difficult emotions and fears of growing up, rather than the food itself. The hyper-fixation on food, she continues, is not the most important or significant factor, but a self-destructive expression of deep-rooted unhappiness and self-loathing. Within this context, 90s skinniness, the fashion industry, and presentational aspects of gender division more generally are unhelpful, to be sure, but also can't be neatly labelled the sole instigators of female discontent (they certainly do nothing to discourage disordered eating and negative body image, however). Girls learn about their expected gendered behaviours in less visible ways, too, and an emphasis on being well-behaved and excessively deferential quickly morphs into perfectionism and self-denial. The anger, ugliness, and fears of teenage girls do not have an appropriate outlet here, and when they don't the brain may simply create a space for those feelings to go, no matter how destructive this ends up being. I learned a lot through my experience of reading this, and became more than a little angry at the trivialisation and in some cases demonisation of some of the most vulnerable girls.

Speaking of vulnerable children, I thought I would briefly address the negative—and, in my opinion, mostly unfair—reviews and criticisms that this book has received on account of a few things. Firstly, and no doubt this was anticipated by Freeman herself, there are a few who have similarly suffered with an eating disorder and are unhappy with her portrayal of anorexia nervosa. Though this is understandable—when people have suffered they want to see their experiences represented—if it is one's sole metric for measuring the merit of this book, many will be left disappointed. She is one woman, and has never claimed to speak for everyone.

She no doubt also anticipated the hoards of one-to-two-star reviews by people calling her a ‘TERF’ for a few chapters that make reference to, and compare, the experiences of girls with anorexia and girls adopting transgender identities and seeking medical treatment to become transmen (I saw one reviewer express their disbelief that Freeman would talk about dysphoria as though it’s an illness—wait until they discover that transitioning requires one to fulfil certain diagnostic criteria. Gosh, it’s almost as though you’re considered to be in psychological distress). For those who don't know, in 2009 most referrals to the UK's adolescent gender clinic on account of distress towards one's biological sex (gender dysphoria) were boys, but by 2019 the number of overall referrals had not only notably increased (77 in 2009 to 2,590 in 2019), but also had a demographic shift, with 74% of those referred being young girls. The proportion diverges from more equal numbers between boys and girls pre-puberty to skewing more heavily female during. If this sounds at all alarming to you, or at least something curious that ought to be looked into, then welcome to the ranks of women and men who are called fascists and extremists for expressing this utterly benign and reasonable view—I know, I'm similarly scratching my head and asking what the heck's going on.

For my part, I believe it’s not only reasonable, but good old-fashioned sensible to investigate why there has been an increase in the number of natal girls identifying as trans. It would be unbelievably irresponsible not to with such a striking demographic shift in those seeking to transition. The more people decry journalists, healthcare professionals, and parents for wanting to look into this issue as evil bigots, the more convinced I become of just how ideological many peoples beliefs about this topic are, and the more aware I am that they are not led by compassion and caution, despite how often they may claim to be. No diagnosis nor treatment is exempt from criticism and above careful investigation, and to argue otherwise is to argue that some young people do not deserve the same thorough and evidence-based medical care. That's all I've to say about that right now, but I felt the need to tell any who may be confused by such reviews, or wrongly convinced of the author's supposed bigotry, that this is a sensitive and loving book that is well worth your time.

Ultimately, this is a hopeful and compassionate book, and the author's journey to recovery (which took decades) is personally inspiring to me, and no doubt will be to many others who have spent time locked in tense arguments inside their mind. Nobody gets out the other side without staring down their fears, and some will never be able to fully shake them, but we are able to make the decision to live and flourish regardless. As someone who is still struggling, and potentially not quite ready to give up all of my illness just yet, it has offered me renewed confidence in my capability to chip away at my fears day after day and know I am resilient not for my ability to hold onto them, but to allow myself to let them go. Highly recommended.

[Maya · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you're a straight, white, cis, thin, well-off, anorexic with a stereotypical eating disorder journey, this book is for you. Anyone else should skip it.

I really wanted to like this book, and honestly did...until chapter 7. THE ANTI-TRANSNESS, Y'ALL! It is undeniable that transness and eating disorders are very linked. And that should be discussed. But certainly not in that way.

There was also a fair bit of anti-fatness and so many assumptions that you can tell how sick a person is by looking at their body- which you absolutely cannot.

Finally, I picked up this book because I wanted to learn more about the link between autism and anorexia. The narrative that I heard in this book was that anorexia makes people seem autistic, but that when they're fed, they're neurotypical again. However, up to 30% of people with anorexia are autistic in a way that doesn't just go away post weight-restoration. I appreciated that this book brought the connection between disorders and autism to light, but would have appreciated a more complex acknowledgement that both can exist at once, and perhaps a discussion of why that is.

Aside from those major red flags, the book was honestly pretty good. It made me feel seen in some of the more shameful parts of anorexia, in a way that other books have not. But I can't get over the literal entire chapter dedicated to being a TERF, hence the one star review.

Also, I do not recommend this book for people in early recovery as it is graphic, descriptive, and has the potential to be very triggering.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wouldn't call this a "study of anorexia". It's anecdotes spun as truth. I'd had high hopes since Hadley Freeman was a bestselling author already and a journalist- unfortunately I did no further research and had no idea about her stance on "gender critical feminism".

My main issues with this book are as follows: how the author portrays EDs as a whole (it really seems she looks down on anyone who is/wasn't an extremely underweight restrictive anorexic), her stance on trans issues and gender dysphoria, and lastly the book is too focused on just her hospital stays.

She very much plays into the hierarchy of eating disorders where restrictive anorexia is at the top and the "purest", best disorder. It's conveniently the only disorder she's dealt with- and she'll remind you of it time and time again. She stated as though it was fact that bulimics just want to be "healthy skinny" and anorexics want to be disgustingly skinny. From my anecdotal experience that is simply not true (been bulimic and wanted to be bones and been anorexic and wished I could look and weigh more without changing my behavior). The way she talks about weight and others made me quite uncomfortable. My my jaw almost dropped when she wrote about her journalism career and stated that she ate the same as a woman she was shadowing and dropped nearly a stone in a few weeks, meanwhile the woman stayed the same weight, so she assumed she must binge at night and almost played it off as a joke.

I noticed that almost all the citations about eating disorders were VERY outdated, sans a few newer ones about the links between autism and eating disorders; I've read a few studies on the association between "autistic traits" and eating disorders and how certain traits are correlated to different diagnoses and ED behaviors. The author barely touched the surface on this research and only used it to create a straw man argument about letting trans kids take hormone blockers. I found it ironic that her main argument against hormone blockers was bone density and some weird feelings she holds that by not going through puberty earlier than 19 she was decades behind her peers (I'd argue missing most of the teen years of schooling to be in hospital affected her more than if she had a period). On bone density, she states she herself had osteoporosis as a teen but was able to reverse it in her 20s. So what she's saying is bone density loss during teen years isn't always the end of the world, got it.

I find it quite odd that she wants to make trans kids suffer because she has some belief that assigned female at birth kids just don't want to be teen girls? That very well may be true, but it's hardly a convincing argument (as a teen girl who wanted nothing to do with puberty the last thing I wanted was to become a teen boy or nonbinary?). There was no science to back up her theories only her own anecdotes about how anorexia had been her "identity" too and that she wasn't allowed to keep it, so why should trans people be allowed to live in their own experienced identity. That's like two degrees away from telling gay people they shouldn't be allowed to act on it or telling interracial couples they shouldn't be together. Yikes.

And lastly the book is almost wholly about her stay in the hospital during the depths of her anorexia. She remained very disordered for years after that and just glossed over it. And the section about recovery felt like an afterthought. I'm not sure who this book is for? I guess for parents of anorectics? But I feel like 100 pages could've been boiled down to a few sentences without all the ED porn. She says she's fully recovered now, and as far as food goes, that may be true. But this book shows she has a lot to work on internally and that mean, judging anorexic voice is still very much in her. Would not recommend.

[Liralen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Freeman was barely a teenager when she developed anorexia, and she spent the next few years in and out of—mostly in—hospital. She recovered, but for decades afterward it was a tenuous version of recovery, holding just steady enough to avoid another cycle of downward spirals. In Good Girls, she draws on that experience to both tell her own story and dig a bit deeper into the cultural context and understanding of anorexia, then and now.

I'm particularly interested in Freeman's discussion of the intersections between autism, gender dysphoria, and eating disorders—she's not the first to make the connections, but they're new enough connections that I am only now starting to see some of them in books. Freeman clarifies early on that she neither has questioned her gender nor is on the autism spectrum, but it's still one of the deeper looks at the connections that I've seen in book form, and it makes me wonder whether she has written (or researched) an article or two on the subject.

By and large, Good Girls is not a huge departure from other eating-disorder memoirs. That's less a criticism than an observation that there's a limit to how different stories of repeat hospitalizations can be; if you've read one well-written book on the experience there are probably quite a lot of others you can scratch off the list. (Good thing I'm not good at scratching unread books off the list, I suppose.) I would note that this is definitely not a healthy book for anyone not already healthy or securely in recovery; Freeman makes an effort to step away from specifics, but eating disorders are masters at fostering competition, and even without specific numbers there's quite a lot of competitive material in here.

Freeman's descriptions of the treatment she received as a teenager can be incisive; it is of course impossible to say how things might have been different had she been treated under a different model, but the descriptions of her treatment in the 90s are largely bleak. Much has changed (late in the book she reports visiting one of the hospitals where she spent time and noting markers of more individualized treatment, such as different meal plans), but it will be interesting to see how current treatment is viewed in another ten or twenty years.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

[Kasey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had a lukewarm response to this book until right around p.100, where it ventures into dog-whistling TERF territory, and claims that “gender” and “sex” have only been differentiated in the last ten years. Judith Butler, obviously, is not cited. If this counts as “journalism,” it’s a depressing referendum on the field. If it weren’t a library book, this would go straight into the backyard fire pit.

[Mick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ummm this started off with some interesting info about metabolic differences in anorexics, etc, but then went wildly TERF. Nope nope nope.

[Basic B's Guide · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Simon Audio for the gifted listening copy. This wasn't on my reading radar but boy am I glad I listened to it.

About 8 hours on audio and narrated by the author herself. Its a detailed experience of the disease while also taking a deep dive and journalistic view on how treatments have evolved. I found the correlations to autism, OCD and metabolic rate to be fascinating and eye-opening.

Part memoir and part investigative journalism, I highly recommend listening to this if you are interested in learning more about Anorexia.

[Jess · Rating 1 out of 5]

I want to be clear that this would be a one-star book even if Hadley Freeman hadn't shoe-horned TERF propaganda into multiple sections of a book that is purportedly about anorexia.

This is only a "study" of anorexia as anorexia affects Hadley Freeman. Most sources are people she was treated with or people who treated her. She uses herself and fellow wealthy white women living in industrialized countries as the measure of how anorexia "typically" presents. She even mentions at the beginning of the book that anorexia rarely is seen in low and middle income countries or men and boys, but she doesn't question whether anyone is looking for anorexia in these populations.

There's no exploration of whether a possible reason why the anorexic people Freeman and her therapists know personally seem to be remarkably like Freeman is that Freeman never bothered to look beyond the people she encountered in her teens. She gives lip service to a possible overlap between anorexia and autism spectrum disorder, but for the most part she presents whatever theory of anorexia's causes and dismisses what she feel doesn't apply to her. For example, she mentions a theory that anorexia is related to birth order but then concludes this theory is incorrect because she herself isn't the "correct" sibling for the theory to hold. If Freeman wanted to write a memoir, she should have written a memoir. But purporting this information as generalizable is far more harmful than if she'd just stuck to her day job (which is misquoting Judy Blume).

Freeman is a journalist, and while, granted, The Guardian is best used as a fish wrapper, I don't understand why neither Freeman nor her editors thought to address how myopic the sourcing is here. She's not a well-meaning lay person who didn't know better than to rely on people she personally knows for sourcing; Freeman absolutely knows better than to use herself as the guidepost for what anorexia looks like. She chose to gaze only at her own navel, and as a result she ends up with bullshit conclusions like "anorexia is caused by girls not wanting to become women" because that's how she interprets her own experience (also I suspect she wanted an excuse to take another shot at trans people by trying to connect this conclusion to puberty blockers with long-debunked bullshit).

Others have mentioned that this book is TERF-y, and while I agree, I wasn't really surprised once Freeman started more blatantly showing her ass on this topic. The giveaway for TERF writers is that they do exactly what Freeman did throughout this book: they talk about their experiences exclusively. You have to think the world revolves around you to some extent to be a TERF in the first place, and by the time Freeman started spouting propaganda, she'd already all but said only women who are like her are vulnerable to anorexia.

There is a chapter that basically plagiarizes Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage, and while I hate to give Shrier credit, at least that book is what it purports to be about. The TERF-ery comes right back out later like that hand at the end of Carrie when Freeman discusses the above-mentioned "some girls just don't want to grow up" bullshit. This section basically copies that one section in J.K. Rowling's TERF manifesto in the fish wrapper in which Jojo effectively said, "Of course girls want to be boys. I would have wanted to be a boy when I was a girl." Again, Freeman is a journalist. There is no reason she should not understand that passing off another person's thoughts as your own is plagiarism.

Being perfect is not a pre-requisite for deserving compassion, and Freeman's experience with anorexia was clearly harrowing. No one deserves to live with the way anorexia made her feel about and treat herself, and no one should be subject to much of the misguided treatment she describes receiving. But the best writers (and the best people in general) use their own pain to try to understand other people better. I think this could have been a book that helped people if Freeman had done that. Instead, I don't see how this bait-and-switch of a book could do anything but hurt the people who read it.

[Crystal]

TW: Other authors have covered how gender dysphoria and eating disorders sometimes have surface level similarities without attempting to discredit trans people. A so-called gender critical take on the overlap is a blow. Wanted to write a review on this memoir so I could properly address that but definitely haven't had the spoons and don't anticipate that changing in the near future.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is difficult to rate. This book is really good in places, with some important reflections on how inpatient eating disorder treatment can lead to institutionalisation, and how punitive approaches can traumatise patients.

But it also has some pretty major flaws. The main ones include the trans-hostile attitudes and Freeman essentially presenting ill-informed opinions as facts in many places (which overlaps with the trans-hostile attitudes).

What I mean by 'trans-hostile attitudes': by no means do I think it's anti-trans to talk about the connection between anorexia and gender dysphoria in adolescents (I don't even think it's anti-trans to have opinions on the practice of prescribing puberty blockers more complicated than 'life-saving and essential medical care!', which places me firmly in the 'TERF' camp according to some). It's a really interesting topic and it deserves attention.

The problem is that Freeman's approach is incredibly biased, but Good Girls presents a veneer of impartiality by invoking medical authority. Spoiler alert: the medical profession has major issues with sexism, anti-trans bias, etc etc. Freeman is of course aware that medics can uphold systems of oppression, having been subject to treatment regimes she describes as patriarchal. But she seems reluctant to be very critical of the experts she consults and quotes at length in the book, and worryingly disinterested in asking questions that might lead to answers that challenge her worldview too much.

I could say that Good Girls is poorly researched, but I don't think Freeman (who comes across as an incredibly intelligent person) actually lacks research skills, so that seems inaccurate. I'm sure Freeman has come across transgender perspectives on gender that aren't cringe-inducingly misogynistic, but she has ignored them, because they don't suit her arguments. Andrea Long Chu's Females (one of the texts Freeman quotes in bad faith here) evoked viscerally negative feelings in me, but it would be an *extraordinary act of bad faith* for me to treat it as representative of 'gender theory' without engaging meaningfully with other perspectives. As far as I can recall, Freeman only quotes trans women in the book within the context of them saying cringey things about being sex. If this was solely memoir, and Freeman didn't theorise about gender dysphoria and transness, that would be completely fine. But if you write a whole book with a whole chapter dedicated to gender dysphoria, and you only quote trans women (a population with high rates of eating disorders) within the context of them talking about sexual submissiveness and femininity in graphic terms... Well, that's a choice. I don't throw the word 'transphobic' around willy-nilly but what else describes this? No book can be everything for all people, but the very deliberate seeming cherry-picking here just feels cruel and misleading.

Another area where Freeman seems to let prejudice override her responsibility not to spread mistruths and stigma is where bulimia and anorexics with binge-purge tendencies are concerned. Freeman seems keen to reinforce the stereotype of anorexia being a skeletal adolescent girl who lives on an apple a day, but the overlap between anorexic and bulimic behaviours is far greater than she lets on. Freeman can't help her own story fitting a stereotype, of course (although she definitely underplays certain aspects to fit her argument - if anorexia is about not wanting to grow up and Become a Woman, why was grown adult Hadley, working full-time, having relationships, etc etc, still anorexic?). But certain generalisations about anorexics versus bulimics made in the book seem likely to contribute to misconceptions and don't really add much insight. There are some very weird comments made about 'dabblers' in the section about Freeman's time as a fashion journalist, too. Good Girls reinforces the idea that adolescent-onset restrictive subtype anorexia that makes you look as though you're about to die from starvation is the default anorexia, and all other manifestations of the disorder are somehow deviant and perhaps a little pitiable, but that's the remnants of Freeman's anorexia talking.

Overall I think this is a worthwhile read. But there are a lot of missed opportunities and generalisations that don't stand up well to the relevant social science or medical literature.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hadley Freeman's Good Girls: A Study and Story of Anorexia is an excellent memoir cum personal investigation into anorexia. The author was hospitalised with anorexia when she was 13 years old, and then struggled with the illness for the next 20 years of her life. This book chronicles her own personal experiences whilst interweaving discussions she has had with doctors and professors into the narrative, as well as conversations with those fellow patients who she met in hospital as a teenager.

I found this to make for an unputdownable read on a topic that I (probably like many others) had very little knowledge about before picking up the book, except for the skewed portrayals of the illness in the media when awareness of anorexia was increasing in the early 00s. Freeman is incredibly candid about her experiences with the illness and later OCD and addiction, and I think this honesty is what makes this book such a compelling read. Not an easy read by any means, but one I would wholeheartedly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and Fourth Estate for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.

[Alyssa Harvie · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've ever read. There is so much misunderstanding and misinformation out there about anorexia, spread by people who don't know much better and even survivors alike, all because of the narratives we're repeatedly told. Freeman's story was brutally honest, and her research and reflection were incredibly nuanced. I wish I could make this book required for the whole world, or at least for people to read before they ever speak about anorexia. It included so much that I feel like I've been screaming out into the void my whole life, with no one really listening. I binged it in one day and nearly highlighted the thing to death, because Freeman constantly hit the nail on the head. It was beautiful.

My only concern for this book is that people with a lack of ability to discern nuance will read it and dismiss it: there is a section on the connection between anorexia and gender dysphoria during/before puberty that is really nuanced and carefully tread, but also honest. I fear that people will read it as anti-trans or anti-compassionate care for children who are questioning their gender identity. But I can only hope and pray it will be understood and well-received, because this book really does do such an excellent job at explaining why adolescents, and mostly girls, develop anorexia at the particular time they do.

Thank you a million times over to Hadley Freeman for writing this book with such honesty and care, and thank you to Simon & Schuster for the advance digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Queralt✨ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ll preface this by saying I don’t like reviewing books about disordered eating, but this one rattled me a bit because it felt problematic in a sense.

Overall, I think I liked it. It was very strong in the beginning when it focused on what triggers anorexia and what anorexia is - not a need to be skinny to look like a model, but to be and look sick, to waste away, to disappear. I think I had never seen it written as strongly as Freeman did. And while I don’t think this explains everyone’s experience with anorexia, it was good to see.

I also liked that she took time to define anorexia types and I wish she had explained more about them because in my healthcare system, you’re either anorexic (you don’t eat), bulimic (you throw up), or you’re a binge eater. I’m not sure I feel conflicted about her writing but I am at her choice of definitions. In her book, Freeman describes anorexic as purgative (you throw up) or restrictive (you don’t eat) and both of them are anorexia as long as the individual wants to be thin. Then, people who throw up but have a healthy weight, are bulimics… Is it this way? Like I am not sure, but I think this is putting thinness on a pedestal. Why am I saying pedestal? Well, I don’t know, at least in my experience (and this is something she sort of indirectly mentions) there is a disordered eating hierarchy and restrictive anorexics are usually on top (again, not something I personally believe in, but coming from my experience). So saying that underweight bulimics and healthy-weight bulimics are different seems problematic to me. I think I don’t make much sense on this but Ro Mitchell talks about anorexia not being a body type and how invalidating it is for people with the disease to be ‘body typeized’ (?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3a5E... (min 16ish if anyone is actually curious)

I didn’t enjoy her explanation as to why she focuses on white women in this book. I get that men are a minority in the anorexic community and that other ethnicities seek treatment for bulimia and binge eating rather than anorexia, but I think it would have enriched the book more to have more experiences.

This is because, well, the book seems to tell her story of anorexia and addiction to work out because of it, and how she dealt with it in the eating disorder centers. This, I think it’s like fair game to talk about. Same with interviewing people and stuff. But other topics had me scrunching my nose: theorizing about gender dysphoria and how ‘girls get anorexia because they don’t want to become women and have sex’ seemed problematic? And bear with me but she mentions a few times how restrictive anorexia destroys your body but then she linked ‘not wanting to have sex’ as something that’s a decision. Again, in my experience and from what I have heard, when you’re restricting your hormones do something or other and your libido is pretty much non-existent (and that’s simultaneous to many other reasons why someone may not want to have sex, such as showing your body, exertion when you’re already light-headed AF, etc.).

All the stuff about transsexuality and autism was not needed in my opinion. I actually ended up taking three tests (!!!) to see if I’m autistic or have autistic traits or whatever that was, and I think it’s just a misrepresentation of just everything? I mean, I guess sure, some restrictive anorexics like patterns and obeying others, but it seems like a stretch to say that means we’re anywhere near the autistic spectrum (especially because this also felt like she was theorizing). Also putting men who treat eating disorders in a bad light was sort of… uncalled for. That’s something I could not be like ‘ah, yeah, all men are creeps,’ at least in my experience, so I don’t think it’s fair to write a whole chapter about how men in the ED field tend to be creeps and maybe even glorify thinness.

I think this book just shows that anorexia needs to be more researched in general, which Freeman says, because we’re just treating comorbidities and not all of us have comorbidities to treat. But this book felt like ‘since I cannot talk about treatment because it’s all comorbidities, I’ll theorize about everything and anything.’ And it didn’t sit well with me.

[Mons · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had this book on my reading list for quite some time, and got to it as soon as it came out on Audible. I wish the author would have left out her very clearly biased opinions on gender theory and trans issues. It would have been just as easy to acknowledge the overlap between anorexic, autistic, and transgender populations without inserting gender critical TERF ideology into it. After 30 minutes of her repeatedly addressing trans boys and men as 'girls' it became clear that she does not see them as anything other than troubled self-loathing females.
I was invested in this book until this chapter, and while I want to complete it the amount of discomfort I felt throughout this chapter has entirely turned me off of this book. As a trans, autistic, anorexic, having a cis person preach about the intricacies of the transgender experience and evils of gender theory is not something I wanted in an anorexia memoir. If ever I'm particularly desperate for material I might come back to it, but until then it's gonna be a no from me.

[Jenna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I always value a lived experience mental health account, but found this problematic and difficult to connect with and other reviews will share some of the reasons why. This wasn’t the ED memoir for me and I think there unfortunately continues to be a long history of unsubstantiated assumptions and privileged blind spots impacting our understanding of and our research and writing about EDs.

[g · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF and zero stars… TERFy from the start but author lays out her transphobia infuriatingly in chapter 7

[Melanie Caldicott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Freeman is an intelligent, articulate and insightful writer and this memoir discussing her experiences of growing up with anorexia is compelling and fascinating. I particularly enjoyed her discussions about the female psyche, the pressures females are under and the issues surrounding the rise in gender dysphoria and the similarities it bears to anorexia. This is thought-provoking and challenging. A good read for anyone interested in the subject from afar, but could well be triggering for anyone with personal experience.
This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

[Dom · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay. This book is just warped. What’s sad is that it has a lot of really beneficial knowledge wrapped into some parts of it. I just couldn’t see past the transphobia and TERF aspect of it in chapter 7.

If you’re straight, white transphobic and cis you may enjoy this but the fact that earlier on in the book says we don’t know the cause of anorexia and there’s a reference to it possibly stemming from gender dysphoria but then later on she spends an entire chapter slamming trans people was enough for me to hate it. Also gender dysphoria and the lgbtq population experience high incidences of eating disorders so it was a missed opportunity to not include that fact. That’s where I thought it was headed and I was excited to see someone mention it but then, trash.

You can clearly tell she’s unwell still the book has alot of fat phobia in a later chapter she literally tells of an experience where she stayed with a model for three weeks and ate the same as her and she lost three stone but the model didn’t so she must have been binge eating! Who says that?! She also says the fashion industry has no hand in anorexia…..

There’s another reference to wanting to just be seen as a person and being genderless. Ma’am there’s a word for this it’s non binary, another missed opportunity. Also aligning your delayed puberty because of anorexia to being the same experience as children being prescribed puberty blockers is NOT the same. Don’t speak on things you know nothing about.

Really she should’ve stayed in her own lane and experience of knowledge. I feel bad for her children if any of them are lgbtq.

This book literally went into my recycling bin after I read it. If you’re newly recovering I wouldn’t recommend it either as it’s super graphic. I’ve been in recovery ten years and I found it triggering to say the least. And don’t even get me started on the chapter mentioning autism and how once you’re recovered your autistic traits just poof vanish…I can’t even explain how irritating this women is how she even got married and had children is beyond me.

Anyway if I could unread this I probably would the review for this should be negative stars.

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not finish. I really appreciated all the research and was thinking this could be a really helpful book, but the chapter that explores the role of gender identity in anorexia just turned into a load of transphobic rubbish which, after looking up Freeman's other work, seems to be her style. Her bias comes through as she finds any 'evidence' she can to invalidate transgender people's experience with anorexia, and reinforce the gender binary as somehow crucial to a girl's development. She cherry-picks quotes from unnamed 'high profile gender critical people' that make transgender people seem sexist, like they only want to transition so they can wear pink. She then blames feminism for making girlhood 'more confusing', implying anorexia is the result of not knowing how to be a girl in a world where pink toys can also be used by little boys. Such a shame Freeman keeps ruining good work with hideous transphobia, and I'm still confused how a person so intelligent in some areas, can spout such poorly researched, clearly prejudiced rubbish. And still, 4th Estate went ahead and published it, and other major UK feminists promoted it (Caitlin Moran, for example). Such a disappointment.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

TERF much? This book is - according to the author - about girls and their eating disorders. Still, it goes off on theories about how gender dysphoria is just another means of self-mutilation. Also, comparing autism to eating disorders and how “sufferers” of both “lack empathy.”

If the author would have stuck to the her own story and the stories about her fellow patients, it would have been great.

As it is now, it’s a story about girls and eating disorders, riddled with transphobia and ableism.

[Lily Crawley · Rating 5 out of 5]

For real this is excellent. Thank you Hadley for writing this and putting into words the reality that is strikingly different to what people presume. On a personal level this was so hard hitting yet so useful. Also the research that has been mentioned is so interesting and has opened ideas that I have never considered. This is heartbreaking as well, but that’s the reality of such a topic.

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first half of this, and found that the author did a good job describing how anorexia feels/felt for many of us. Then in the middle the author showed her TERF side and it got really transphobic. Nope!!

[Lucy Johnston · Rating 2 out of 5]

If she made this a memoir, I think it would work. Instead it’s a memoir plus her analysis of anorexia in general. The analysis is based on her own experience and not much research? “I met a bulimic girl who thought x, so I’m going to talk about how all bulimic people think x.” “My anorexia started as y, so I’m going to assume that’s the main cause of anorexia for everyone.” Just kinda weird

[Angelica Star · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m really conflicted about this book, however I cannot rate it well. It is damaging, I believe, on both a macro and micro scale, even though it is no doubt a truthful and important story told by a person torn through by anorexia, with moments of hope and pockets of wisdom between.

Largely, it presents information about trans issues which are misleading at best and completely erroneous and disgusting at worst. Further, these almost compulsive turns towards attacking trans rights and the autonomy of transgender children and young people, as well as the people that support and care for them simply made for bad writing, shoe horned in till you felt ‘here we go again’. It was shocking and unhelpful, veiled with a sense of care for these young people that obviously as just a gloss to make her opinion less bitter to swallow - care does not follow denying people existence.

On a closer level, this books blurb states that it may offer hope to girls suffering with anorexia and their loved ones. But it was profoundly triggering, and not just because these are issues close to my heart. Listing of weights, lowest weights, weights to reach. Step counts and details of workouts. Snide sarcastic comments about the lowest calorie foods and ways to avoid eating. Rigid ideas about what starts and maintains this disease. Notions taken on about what makes you ill enough. Absolutely no mention of any real solid location of support - doctors will deceive you, parents must not care for you or you damage your relationship forever. No developed narrative that Freeman’s experience is one persons experience, albeit a privileged white person’s experience who could access private and long term help. There are just random dotted comments that she worried about the finances of her parents.. but then, bam, she’s at Oxford University, working for the Guardian, living all over the world. These are all potential issues of course. But again maybe they are required for what is a no holds barred memoir.

But referring to people with anorexia consistently and exclusively as anorexics is unneeded and upsetting.
Conflating anorexia with a persons identity, their title, denies autonomy to people with this disease. This isn’t new information, and it immediately presents Freeman as out of touch with campaigning that is so vital. In fact, Freeman never talks about the need to systematic change in the UK. She tirades about the experience of an awful hospital, returns to it as an adult and states it is better, but fails to touch at all on wait lists and lack of referrals and the lack of long term care. And again all this bizarrely damages Freeman’s message. That life can be more than anorexia. That people deserve help and care. That anorexia is seditious and slippery and needs to be tackled full force. I just can’t understand the need for this.

I won’t recommend this book to others. Sometimes I thought I would, found myself saying ‘that’s me’ and nodding to some of the details in this account. But it’s message seems to be, get pregnant, you might feel better. Its message is not much of a message. Its largest message is one of still blatant disgust for the disease, instead of sustained compassion for the sufferers. Its largest message is likewise one of erasure for young trans people. And that’s not something I can support or want to spread. I’ll find better to share with loved ones about what is going on in my head. I offer only compassion to Hadley Freeman.

[Megan Birman · Rating 2 out of 5]

RIGHT so, weird one.

I will start off by saying that I thought the author did a good job of addressing common misconceptions on causes/triggers/recovery, but I wish she leaned into this more. It was too hyper specific of her own experience to be able to be called a ‘study’.

Overall, it gives a narrow lens of anorexia. While I resonated with it personally, I’m fully aware that I fall under the demographic that writing on this topic is typically geared toward. I don’t think it was inclusive to the diverse range of people this illness impacts.

BUT the reason for the low rating is because the ridiculous anti-trans ideology she starts spewing in chapter 7. She suggests that gender dysphoria is self-mutilation, and that it stems from girls rejecting womanhood out of fear of growing up. It’s just bizarre and she’s clearly passing off her own opinions as facts.

Soooo yeah what a wild ride that was, and not worth the triggers. If anyone has recommendations of better books on this that are also lgbtq+ inclusive please share!!

[Alesya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Эта книга была нужна мне для своеобразного closure с моей подростковой анорексией.
Мне понравилось, что авторка делилась такими личными вещами для того, чтобы дать лучший пример и контекст девушку, с рпп. Истории разных леди вокруг неё тоже очень показательны и нужны для этого повествования. Ну и конечно же статистика и комментарии от докторов не дают забыть, что книга не просто a story, но a study of anorexia.
Увидела, как многих триггернула часть с трансгендерностью. Но я не увидела там никакого унижения и обесценивания, а хорошо заданные вопросы, на которые не хотят отвечать из страха быть отмененными. Но так нельзя. Обо всём нужно говорить и изучать.
Местами я плакала. Много где видела себя. Но ��наете что? Я ела, пока читала эту книгу. Выкуси, сранная анорексия, я больше никогда не вернусь. Как и авторка. Как и все мы, я надеюсь.

[ash]

this book was going great until the chapter "mothers and the woman problem" wherein the author is suddenly spouting TERF rhetoric and being blatantly transphobic. as someone with an eating disorder AND gender dysphoria, the two are NOT the same. being trans is NOT the new anorexia, as freeman puts it. transphobia is NOT self harm. this section was so unneeded and definitely a way for her to spew TERF ideology.

i'm so glad i don't buy books and instead borrowed this from the library bc i would be so pissed if i had paid money for this garbage.