kaydub23's review
3.0
Important content. Interesting read. But overall too long and a bit of a slog to get through…though I acknowledge that’s probably intentional to give just a taste of the struggle to the reader.
hobbitualreader's review against another edition
dark
emotional
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder
aqtbenz's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
tense
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder and Medical content
deborahv's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Eating disorder
colleenmc430's review
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder
aturb92's review
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Eating disorder, and Fatphobia
ajnagle's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Dysphoria, Eating disorder, Chronic illness, Medical content, Medical trauma, Body horror, and Forced institutionalization
liralen's review
4.0
The problem with this chapter of eating disorder memoirs is that it’s very difficult to write about anorexia without bragging about anorexia, and an account of that specific, intense time in the grip of anorexia plays too neatly into the egoic thirst of the disorder—however long it’s lain dormant. It is a condition that is in and of itself a total submission to the ego. And what a lot of people fail to notice about recovered anorexics is that, rather than being ashamed of or horrified about their past, they are often proud. They still get a thrill out of telling you their lowest weight or how many rice cakes used to sustain them for the day, and they might even keep a secret folder containing photos of them at their most impressively sick-looking. So, while my eating disorder has been waiting for years for me to write a book to shock and impress you with her numbers, her regimen, her daily calorie count, the thrilling countdowns the doctors used to pin on her declining life expectancy, while she would love me to include her skinny pictures, I’m not going to give her that. Because this book—spoiler warning—is not about how great I was at anorexia for a while. It’s about how the relentless pursuit of perfection is a sad way to spend a life, and why you should wake up and pull yourself out of that downward spiral as soon as you possibly can. (39)Lynch is best known for her role as Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter. She's probably second-best known for the story of how she wrote to J.K. Rowling when she was struggling with anorexia and Rowling wrote back and encouraged her to get well, especially if Lynch wanted to act.
In The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting, Lynch takes the reader through the much, much messier path of her illness, much further than can be done in a quick interview. This book will not be new material to anyone who (*cough*) has spent much time reading eating-disorder memoirs, but it's well done—it's clear that Lynch has spent a long, long time thinking about how best to present this narrative in her own words, both honestly and without hitting too many trigger points.
There’s not much point trying to avoid being triggered in the immediate aftermath of recovery because pretty much everything is triggering. Eating in front of people is triggering. Choosing what to eat. Watching other people eat. TV sitcoms where female characters casually joke about their eating disorders and claim not to have eaten bread in decades. Magazines, obviously. All models, all athletes, all dancers, especially ballet dancers. Naturally skinny people. Lanky children. Malnourished children in third-world countries on adverts appealing for charitable donations. Jesus on the cross with his enviable ribcage. Friends skipping dessert because they claim they’re not hungry. Anyone leaving any scrap of food on their plate as you mentally calculate the calories they’ve omitted. Religious fasting. Animals in hibernation who don’t eat for months on end and live off their fat reserves. Other people’s hip bones, other people’s belly buttons. Cartoon characters with waspish waists. Wasps. People who say, ‘I was so busy I forgot to have lunch.’ Every other person who has an eating disorder. The stories of other anorexics who died from their thinness. Boys with abs. People who run for fun. People who choose salad for lunch. The Olympics. Greyhounds. All of it, all of it, it’s all so triggering, and there’s no way around it, so you better be ready to cry in public and just generally be a human volcano who might blow and spill all your messy, uncomfortable feelings on the floor at any moment. (305–306)It's on point. It's very, very on point in places. (Side note: Lynch's story about hating tomatoes and having to face them in treatment is darkly, personally funny to me—genuine fear of being made to eat tomatoes is one reason I ended up with treatment that didn't involve a residential centre.) I did find the book a bit long—I felt my interest flagging around page 400, though I'm not sure if that's because (ex-anorectic and all) the disorder story felt more engaging than the vaguer walk through Lynch's early adulthood or whether it's more just that the book is, well, a bit long.
But one of the things that feels most valuable is Lynch's conversation with her mother, late in the book, when she asks her mother about her experience with anorexia—and it finally clicks for Lynch that proper recovery can take absolutely ages. It's something that's so often overlooked in this kind of book, partly because such books are often written when people are a year, or a month, into recovery, and don't actually know what the reality of it looks like yet.
dariazeoli's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5