Lesbian Crushes and Bulimia

Title ~ Lesbian Crushes and Bulimia:
        A Diary on How I Acquired My 
        Eating Disorder
Author ~ Natasha Holme
Publisher ~ Natasha Holme
Published ~ 22 March 2012
Genre ~ Non-Fiction/Memoir

My Rating ~ 3 out of 5

This book is the diary of a 19-yr-old struggling with her sexuality and body image.

As stated in my blog review guidelines I normally don’t read non-fiction, but Natasha Holme, through a Twitter glitch, tied to be my 1700^th follower and I offered to review her book as a prize. Because, you know, I’m broke and don’t really have anything else to offer.

I had a hard time deciding on how to rate this book. On one side, the voyeur in me enjoyed reading her diary. On the other side, the teenager is obsessive about her body image and extremely confused about her sexuality and I had a hard time empathizing with her. It’s been a long time since I was a teenager, so I couldn’t wrap my head around her behavior most of the time. In addition, while I have body image issues to this day, I’ve never wanted to indulge in any behavior associated with anorexia or bulimia. I just can’t imagine starving myself and most definitely have never once thought of binging and purging.

It was a hard read and at the same time an easy read. Easy because it was broken into small segments. Hard because of the subject matter. Yet it was compelling. I had to keep reading to see if Natasha reached the weight she had set as her goal. And I wanted to see if she figured out anything regarding her sexuality. The ending didn’t really give me any answers though. I’d like to know how she’s doing today.