"Wallis offers an account of childhood trauma, a chaotic family life, and a decades long battle with bulimia.

Born in Newcastle, England, to a teenage mother, the author was the eldest of five children. She writes that, over time, her father became verbally and physically abusive toward her mom, who made repeated attempts to leave him. She finally succeeded when Wallis was 9, with the help of a married neighborhood father with whom her mother had developed a relationship; this led to a new living situation, the author writes, in which she endured sexual abuse. Later, her father remarried; despite his past behavior, she says that she deeply missed having him in her life. In high school, she was constantly bullied and began to show the first symptoms of an eating disorder, but it wasn’t until several years later, after a painful breakup with her boyfriend, that she became bulimic. She describes the first event, in which she was watching TV, sobbing, and eating fish and chips: “As my belly bloated and the pain increased, all I could think of was that I needed the pain to stop.” Wallis brings readers along on her 20-year journey to recovery, offering an intimate, insider’s understanding of a complex illness that’s claimed many lives. In clear, conversational prose, occasionally interrupted by staccato declarations, Wallis combines accounts of desperation with clinical appraisals of her experiences. The descriptions of her purging episodes are graphic and disturbing, and they may be uncomfortable for sensitive readers. Still, for those with eating disorders and those who love them, she provides much valuable information, sharing tools she’s developed over the years to recognize her own triggers and “retrain” her brain to focus on healthy responses. Throughout the work, she consistently offers hope.

A gritty and unflinchingly honest remembrance with useful advice for people with bulimia and their loved ones."