Customer Reviews:
Caution - This book might shake your faith..........2004-11-24
I was amazed at the depth of this book. Chapter after chapter Wells was able to pin point weaknesses and compromises being made daily in our churches. This book is not just a for pastors and clergy, its a laity book that takes the reader into areas of church life that will make or break Christianity.
A Classic.......2002-10-18
In this sequel to the groundbreaking 1993 book entitled "No Place for Truth" (which is also strongly recommended), a professor from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary shows how evangelical churches have slowly but surely fallen for the values of postmodern society. Christian ministers in particular should pay close attention to Wells' thoughts, as he calls for a return to preaching God's holiness as an antidote to the church's compromised state.
Strong Evidence for repentance and faith among the church.......2001-01-26
This second in Well's trinity follows on the heels of "No Place For Truth." In it, Well's strongly presents evidence that Christianity is on the brink of caving into the pressures of a postmodern culture and world that it finds itself in.
As in the kings in the Divided Kingdom, many chose to compromise and/or align with the enemies or allies. We know how this turned out for the church. Will the church today heed prophecy such as Well's before it's too late?
Expressing the opinion that the church is being attacked both within and without to speak different messages with different words, Wells challenges the church to be the church; to say a different message which confronts and challenges the world to align itself with the world's Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier.
Very insightful and thought provoking ........1999-11-06
I am reading this book as part of a course in basic theology, and it is very illuminating. I would highly recommend this book to anyone in the church who wants to tell about "the reason for the hope that lies within you..." It is not just for a few pastors and teachers to know theology; it is the opportunity of everyone in the church.
Thoughtful, educating, meant for someone who wants to think.......1999-07-11
I think this is one of the best books I've read of serious Christian thought in the last few years. He teaches on ramifications of our po-mo thinking and also brings out clearly the way our consumer bent way of thinking has dictated the presentation of the gospel. Many times in ways we do not even see or sense...yet the 'consumer as king' mentality has not been challenged in the church and the believer feels at home sitting in judgement on eternal truths. An extremely worthwhile read,
Average customer rating:
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Where the Wasteland Ends: Politics and Transcendence in Postindustrial Society
Theodore Roszak
Manufacturer: Celestial Arts
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Similar Items:
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Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered
ASIN: 0890875618 |
Book Description
The Poems:
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The Wasteland
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The Hollow Men
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Journey of the Magi from the Ariel Poems
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La Figlia che Piange
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Landscape: New Hampshite, Virginia, Usk, Rannoch, by Glencoe, Cape Ann
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Morning at the Window
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Difficulties of a Statesman from Coriolan
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Sweeney Among the Nightingales
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Whispers of Immortality
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Macavity: the Mystery Cat
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The Four Quartets
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Ash Wednesday
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A Song for the Simeon from the Ariel poems
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Marina from the Ariel poems
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Triumphal March from Coriolan
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O Light Invisible, from The Rock
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The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
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Portrait of a Lady
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Preludes
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Mr. Eliot's Sunday Morning Service
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Murder in the Cathederal: Part II, Opening Chorus
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The Family Reunion: Part II, A Chorus
Customer Reviews:
Eliot reads Eliot.......2005-10-10
A. Walton Litz was right on the money after listening to Eliot read his "Waste Land," saying Eliot was essentially a dramatist. Why his poetry takes so well with those who normally don't read poetry. This selection is the most comprehensive of his live and studio recordings. Includes his experimental "Triumphal March from Coriolan" but does not include his brilliant but never-completed play "Sweeney Agonistes" (a play whose truncated rhythm, epilitism, and pauses proceeded both Beckett and Pinter by decades.)
In any case, how can we resist Eliot reciting in his own voice the lines:
"I was neither at the hot gates
Nor fought in the warm rain
Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass,
Bitten by flies, fought."
Average customer rating:
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Teachers in the Middle: Reclaiming the Wasteland of the Adolescent Years of Schooling (Adolescent Cultures, School and Society)
John Smyth , and
Peter McInerney
Manufacturer: Peter Lang Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0820474592 |
Average customer rating:
- Terrible, Beautiful
- Not Even CLOSE to a Good Read...
- Melodramatic but Not Terrible
- Block's almost-masterpiece
- A good read -- but unnecessarily hard to understand.
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Wasteland
Francesca Lia Block
Manufacturer: Joanna Cotler
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Binding: Library Binding
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Similar Items:
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Echo
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Ecstasia
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Primavera
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Nymph
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The Hanged Man
ASIN: 0060286458
Release Date: 2003-11-04 |
Book Description
When you were a baby I sat very still to hold you. I could see the veins through your skin like a map to inside you. I stopped breathing so you wouldn't ... You were just a boy on a bed in a room, like a kaleidoscope is a tube full of bits of broken glass. But the way I saw you was pieces refracting the light, shifting into an infinite universe of flowers and rainbows and insects and planets, magical dividing cells, pictures no one else knew ... Your whole life you can be told something is wrong and so you believe it.
Customer Reviews:
Terrible, Beautiful.......2007-02-05
What a beautiful, emotional book. Others have complained about weetzies ethereal writing style, but true fans will know that's the beauty of Block's work. The story focuses on Marina and her brother Lex, true soulmates who can never be together, focusing more on there love then the inevitable incest, which only happens once, was mutual, in a gay friends apartment when they were both drunk. Even so, Lex in his guilt kills himself, leaving Marina to face the shattering truth of his adoption. We follow Marinas progress from her grief and heartbreak to learning to love again.
Not Even CLOSE to a Good Read..........2007-01-07
I didn't like this book. The author's writing style was very hard for me to follow and it was not smooth and kind of 'jumpy' in the style. I couldn't really finish reading it because I quickly lost interest.I wanted to feel for the characters but they were not appealing to me at all.
Wasteland= a waste of good paper and more importantly a waste of my time.
Melodramatic but Not Terrible.......2006-08-16
Like some of Block's other work, this book's virtues include otherworldly beauty and controversial topics. Also like Block's other work, the situations have the tendency to become melodramatic.
The revelation that Marina's brother, Lex, is adopted is a bit cliché. Especially after the two unfortunate lovebirds suffer so much. But like much better writers, Francesca Lia Block dives beneath the surface of every convention she creates. Sensitivity and a certain gentleness endow each character, and Block's prose, as always, give a magic quality to everyday life.
It helps the drama of "Wasteland" immensely that the story concludes in a much more satisfying way than it begins.
Block's almost-masterpiece.......2006-08-11
It seems clear that Francesca Lia Block is at her strongest when she adheres not only to the style of poetry, which her lush and imagistic prose usually does, but to the structure as well. For me, the multigenerational Weetzie saga has exhausted itself, and in works like "Echo" and "Nymph" she gets so distracted introducing new storylines and characters midway that she loses sight of what interested her-- or the reader-- to start with!
So a claustrophobic tale like "Wasteland" plays to her strengths. During the magnificent first third of the book, she seems to be rewriting "Wuthering Heights" or creating a YA version of "The Virgin Suicides." "Wasteland" shares with both a perfervid sense of doomladen emotional overdrive, borrowing the (suggested) incest of the former and the indeterminate narrative voice(s) of the later. Also reminiscent of "The Virgin Suicides" is the interloper West, an idealistic lad who looks on from without, wishing to save our heroine Marina from the evil fate that haunts her. This is however problematic, since the reader inevitably feels like Marina and her dead brother Lex were somehow "meant" for each other, if only by their tragic self-abandonment to a forbidden love. But the sense of yearning, on all sides, is deeply felt, etched into the reader's senses through explosively poetic passages like the "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" chapter set on a rooftop at New Year's.
Of course, the careful reader already suspects that Block will try to have her cake and eat it too! This is undoubtedly a flaw, since there is really no comfortable way to rationalize what happened, as Marina recognizes; at the same time, fans of Romantic literature may wish that Block had simply embraced the forbidden, this being a story. At any rate, this shift is introduced with great clumsiness. More clumsy still, however, are the plot mechanics that get us there. When Marina suddenly wonders if, gee, her late brother could have left a suicide note in the 'mailbox' they used to pass notes to each other, I coulda pulled my hair out!! A Hardy Boys mystery could be a little less obvious. What's maddening is that Block has such clear literary gifts, and also (as this novel advertises!) has studied some great literature. If, as she has always claimed, she doesn't really write for the YA "genre" then she should do right by her audience and work to be convincing.
And why oh why does Marina keep venturing back into that crappy nightclub like a dog going back to its own vomit, never finding anything but trouble, until West finally makes her drop it? Marina comes across as a moron. Block pretends that these forays will move the plot forward, but they contribute nothing, aside from the oblique clue that Lex's mom had something to do with his death (i.e. by witholding the truth; but this is only an interpretation). Nor is it ever clear just why this book is set in a circa-1979 punk vs. disco world-- the narrators are not looking back on this from their adulthood, so why does Block feel it necessary to place this book in times past? It's unlikely that Marina and Lex would've gone off for their own DNA testing! For an author as self-consciously hip as Block (there's something to be said about advertising that you're voted 'one of L.A.'s coolest people'!), she should have no trouble introducing contemporary pop culture signifiers into her work. And just why can't a girly writer like Block let her poor heroines enjoy a little disco-dancing without some smartypants punk telling them they need to "get educated"? Block's unabashed love of kitsch, glitter, fairies and androgeny has vastly more in common with the rave aesthetic than anything "punk", but she seems to have missed the memo!
All this is major trouble for a book striving towards excellence. Still, I recommend the experience, for there are so many lovely passages full of vivid emotional extremity. Marina is a deeply affecting vessel of suffering, and while Lex is a somewhat distant character and, with his highfalutin' extracurricular reading and his bald head, somehow unpleasantly suggests Superman's nemesis, West on the other hand is a very likeable and empathetic person, and Block wisely gives the reader, as well as Marina, time to let go of the Lex-Marina affair before letting him bring on the healing. Though not as consumate a work as "The Hanged Man" or "Violet & Claire", "Wasteland" shows Block still in possession of her fiery poetic sensibility, and I will still be collecting her new tomes, hoping for at least the same rich textures, even if they don't always cohere into meaningful wholes.
A good read -- but unnecessarily hard to understand........2006-06-29
The first three or so pages of this book are what caught my attention. The way Block describes Lex's feelings for Marina through such ultimately touching literary devices struck me right through the heart. Reading this book, I could truly feel Marina&Lex's love for one another, and the pain the two of them must have been feeling without having anyone else to understand.
However, the way Block proceeded to narrate the story perplexed me. Switching from first-to third person and avoiding the use of any quotation marks whatsoever made dialogue unnecessarily confusing. You will probably have to persistently flip back a couple of pages every chapter or so to understand who is telling the story in that time frame.
The story is short and bitterly heartwarming, a quick read for a rainy day. Definently a novel that will leave you thinking.
Book Description
A hundred years after the Big Wet, Earth has been left a broken, infertile world of rock and sand. The town of Providens is like many others on the post-Big Wet planet - small, mostly illiterate and struggling for survival. But while most communities are like Providens, not all the cities that survived the Big Wet are. Some are like Newbegin, burgeoning metropolises that combine pieces of past societies with the new status quo. When Providens welcomes a stranger named Michael into its midst, will the quiet man lead them to the better world of Newbegin or shatter what little order still exists?
Customer Reviews:
Good start.......2007-10-18
Keeping it short so as not to repeat things, this is a post-apocalyptic story, occurring a bit over 100 years after the war that destroyed most of civilization as we know it. There are the traditional elements of desert-like landscape, survival in harsh conditions, "Mad Max-esque" technology, and mutated beings that either a) look really ugly and are bestial or b) have special abilities.
One has to remember that this is just book one in a series. So far it looks like there will be decent character development and an interesting storyline. I look forward to seeing where this is all going to go. I also hope that we find out more about The Big Wet, the event that destroyed everything.
The art is greyscale and done well, though some characters start to look alike, and it's kind of low contrast where I personally tend to like higher contrast in my black/white graphic novels.
One element that stood out to me is the cultures of the people in the book - particularly their speech patterns. Its done well and isn't cheezy. Also nice to have a strong (so far a main character) female character.
The book is not a stand-alone read, no element is self-contained so it reads like a first chapter to a much larger story. I look forward to future releases.
What is the Big Wet?.......2007-10-05
The world as we know it drowned. One hundred years later the Earth is still poisonous. There are no clouds, there are no birds, and there are no trees. There are, however, mutated monsters living in the dead cities and infesting the desert like vermin. And people are just trying to survive.
We meet Michael, a loner who walks the wastes, and has been doing so for a very long time (which, in a world that can kill you in a hundred different ways, is saying something). And we meet Abi, Sheriff of Providens, who cares about her people, possibly more than she can afford to.
When the town of Providens is ransacked by Sand-Eaters, the survivors must trek to the city of Newbegin. The desert alone is tough, but Sand-Eaters and "wulves" make it tougher. When a caravan comes along, the travelling is easier, but the company is questionable. And in the town of Newbegin itself, the ruling council is looking more and more unfavorably against the new Sun-Singer religion, a religion which everyone from Providens belongs to.
This series is written by Anthony Johnston and illustrated Christopher Mitten, both Oni Press regulars. This volume collects the first six issues of the monthly series.
Yes it's another post-apocalyptic story. But it's well executed. The story is character driven, and those characters are interesting. What little we know of the history is told by the Sun-Singer priest as a fireside fable. (And on the website www.thebigwet.com) The art is stylized and dynamic. The action is intense and even scary at times.
There are a few weak points where the story doesn't quite track, like lots and lots of mutants attacking but the battle seeems to end too quickly, and some of the minor characters look similar so it's tough to follow who's talking. But these problems are few and far between.
Overall this is a great beginning and I will definately be buying the next volume.
Average customer rating:
- terribly out of date
- Important voice to be heard
- Like reading my own diaries from the past
- If I could give it less than one star I would
- A Sad Chronicle of a 10-Year Suicide
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Slim to None : A Journey Through the Wasteland of Anorexia Treatment
Jennifer Hendricks
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
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Binding: Hardcover
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Similar Items:
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Second Star to the Right
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Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia (P.S.)
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Diary of an Anorexic Girl
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The Secret Language of Eating Disorders: How You Can Understand and Work to Cure Anorexia and Bulimia
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Stick Figure
ASIN: 0071410694 |
Book Description
A young woman's fatal battle with anorexia, in her own words
In the tradition of Go Ask Alice, Prozac Nation, and Girl Interrupted, Slim to None grants readers precious access to the emotional and psychological underpinnings of its author. Step-by-step, readers follow Jenny's long journey through a "wasteland" of failed treatments and therapies, false hope, and abuse by the mental health system that kept her captive most of her life.
Although this disease has been at the forefront of public awareness for years, anorexia continues to claim more victims than any other mental illness. Slim to None reveals the glaring inadequacy of the mental health system to treat and fully understand this disease.
The first journal of an anorexic to be published posthumously, the book discloses the innermost thoughts, fears, and hopes of a young girl stricken and fighting to recover.
Jenny Hendricks painstakingly recorded her experiences as she suffered from and eventually succumbed to this eating disorder. With candor, she recounts being shipped from one doctor to another and subjected to widely varying treatments--all of which ultimately proved unsuccessful. Her father, Gordon Hendricks, fills in this compelling narrative with his own memories of his daughter's struggle.
Customer Reviews:
terribly out of date.......2007-06-28
I am just starting down the long road of treating anorexia. Believe it or not, my father, at the ripe age of 86, has developed a severe case. Not knowing much about the disorder, I bought books and started reading. This was the third book I read. I got it because it was about a father/daughter and thought it might shed some light on what was coming for us. But by page 36 I was questioning the "treatment" Jenny was getting. I found myself, even with my limited knowledge of the disorder, questioning what kind of therapist would ever say or do some of the things that were happening here. Finally, by around 50 pages into the book it dawned on me that despite a 2003 publication date, these events must have happened decades ago. It was hard to find the years these things happened in, in her journal entries you see only months/days. Eventually, by mentioning a movie she went to see and by closely looking at the clothing and hair style on the cover photo, it became clear these events took place in the 70's and 80's. Now these ridiculous "treatments" and "approaches" made sense, the knowledge base and treatment facilities at that time was in it's infancy.
Unfortunately, I was not interested in knowing how things were done 25 years ago when this disorder first became public, I need to know what to expect today. So while it is an interesting read, the "wasteland" of treatments they speak of is from the 70's and 80's and not current. I feel that should have been made perfectly clear early on and it is not.
Important voice to be heard.......2006-08-13
Slim to none is the diary of an anorexia patient, Jennifer Hendricks. This is a difficult and frustrating read. Jenny is totally confused through must of the book, due, not only by her severe eating disorder, but also through all the crazy "therapies" to try to heal her. It is an important story to be told to see just how misunderstood the disease was, even by doctors. Everyone had a different idea on how to heal Jenny, and most of them exceeding is only making her worse. The worst shame of it all is that Jenny tried so hard for so long and spent most of those years that she writes about, in one hospital or another. The last years of her life are revolved around her troubled thoughts and lost hopes of a normal life. I think this book is important for all doctors and families of people struggling with eating disorders. Also, anyone who is studying about eating disorders. As far as the story part of the book goes, it is repetitious, especially in the beginning, but keep reading, it is worth it in the end.
Like reading my own diaries from the past.......2006-07-03
I am a recovering anorexic. I was hospitalized numerous times before something inside of my mine just snapped and I was ready to let go. Really ready. And I am one of the very few lucky ones.
I love this book. Jennifer's father reminds me of my own and the struggle he put up to keep me alive.
My father never gave up. Jennifer's father held on until the very end when he finally gave in and knew she was going to die. My heart breaks for him, and for Jennifer.
Eating disorder treatment has come a LONG way since Jennifer's struggle, but it is still severely flawed. Insurance companies are atrocious and refuse to pay for long term care. Families without means to pay for repeated and extended treatment are left stranded. Every single person in my family, including extended family, took out a loan and combined their money to pay for my treatments. One private hospital took me in for free after my dad pleaded with them and my doctors had said I would die. This hospital, my family's love, and luck saved my life.
It shouldn't be so difficult to obtain treatment for a fatal disease. That's the message Jennifer's father is trying to get across. I've read some other reviews who express concern that people criticize treatment, and may be less inclined to seek it after reading this book. But I think it is a powerful statement that has been a long time in coming.
When are we going to view eating disorders as biological illnesses that cause psychological illness? When are the doctors and hospitals and insurance companies, not to mention society in general, going to see eating disorders for what they are?
Medical. Fatal. Diseases.
Like cancer of the mind. They must be fought early and aggressively. And it must be POSSIBLE to do that. For anyone who suffers with an eating disorder.
Thank you, Mr. Hendricks, for writing this book. Thank you.
If I could give it less than one star I would.......2005-08-20
I'm sorry, but there is nooooooooooooo way this book is better than Wasted. As a memoir junkie, I read pretty much everything that comes out, and as an ED sufferer I of course read every ED memoir. I could barely even make it through this one; the only reason I did is that I paid for it in hardcover. It is ridiculously trite, annoying, and the dialogue is almost laughably bad. It's just absurd; I rolled my eyes so much I felt like I could twirl pasties with them.
Rock on with your bad self, Marya Hornbacher.
A Sad Chronicle of a 10-Year Suicide.......2005-08-06
Out of a sea of hundreds of titles on anorexia nervosa, Slim to None serves as a heartbreaking reminder of a cold reality. For every recovering anorexic who achieves long-term health, there are untold numbers of others who don't make it. There's an old saying among therapists that there are four barriers to recovery--health, wealth, youth, and brains. Unfortunately for Jennifer Hendricks, she had an abundance of all four. Part Shakespearean-style tragedy and part psychiatric case study, Jen's story is both fascinating and disturbing all at once. With the loving help of her father Gordon, Jen's voice rises from the grave through a series of journals kept over a ten-year period, from her high school days until her untimely death at age 25.
On the surface, the Hendrickses lived a life you see only on television. A close-knit family with five children (Jen is #3), the father had a nice steady job; the mother devoted herself to home and church. The two oldest children had already spread their wings and headed off to college. Jen herself was an honor student who later graduated valedictorian of her high school class. She had everything to live for. So what on earth would cause Jen to develop such strong pervasive feelings of disgust and self-loathing and to wish she were dead? There is no single answer, although her therapists certainly tried to invent one.
Jen bounced from many psychiatrists, therapists, and treatment centers. At one point she encountered a rather bizarre self-proclaimed faith healer, who attempted to perform a slipshod exorcism. Nothing seemed to help. Anorexia is like alcoholism in many ways. It is strong, chronic, and vexing, and it defies rehabilitation. There is considerable debate over whether anorexia has a biological base, is an outward symptom of deeper pathology, or is the result of external conditioning in a society obsessed with weight and beauty. Does an anorexic really "choose" to stay sick? Jen tries repeatedly to answer these questions herself. Maybe deep down she truly wanted death, because she lacked the inner resources to cope with life. Jen tried to hasten the process on a couple of occasions by cutting herself or swallowing pills. But she survived every overt suicide attempt, as someone always found her in time.
Although anorexia literally means "without appetite," Jen was hungry, hungry, HUNGRY. Starved for love and approval, she seeks them from an emotionally distant mother and equally distant and sometimes cruel psychiatrists and mental health workers. Jen often flashbacks to graphic images of profound physical and sexual abuse suffered at the hands of both relatives and family friends. In some parts though, it would appear that Jen developed a severe case of False Memory Syndrome. I personally believe she was somehow traumatized as a child; however, her memories may have been magnified and embellished in therapy. One reviewer surmised that Jen had Borderline Personality Disorder; while Jen may have displayed BPD characteristics, I am not qualified to make such an assessment. There is no doubt that Jen had Major Depression, and no one could come up with an effective treatment plan.
Jen may have reached numeric adulthood, but she remained a child, both in body and in mind, and a wounded child at that. She kept saying she wanted to get better, but anorexia was too ingrained in her very identity. And no one would or could help her carve out a new self-image that did not include anorexia. By the time Jen reached a real turning point--that she was "sick and tired of being sick and tired," and we see a true glimmer of hope for the first time ever, it is too late. Jen's body shuts down, tormented from years of abuse and having cannibalized itself just to make it to the next day. There was nothing left.
Overall, I am glad I read this book, for giving me new insights into the mystery of anorexia. Jen left us a valuable gift. However, my criticisms are based mainly on presentation and style. There were times when Jen went for months without a single entry. Gordon Hendricks attempts to fill in the gaps by recreating scenes and dialog that he personally witnessed, as well as hypothesizing what went on in Jen's therapy sessions. The connections are very choppy in places, and I had a hard time following--sometimes having to backtrack several pages to remind myself of where we were.
Also, while Jen's entries are dated, year stamps are noticeably absent. I suspect this was done intentionally, to give the book a "timeless" feel. However, there are clues as to the time period (e.g. references to movies, TV shows, etc.). My guess is that the action takes place from 1979 to 1989 or 1990. Anorexia was only just starting to come into the public consciousness. Without defending poor medical practice, which is pervasive throughout, if Jen's health team seems ignorant of anorexia, it's because they are! We have come a long way over the last twenty or so years.
For that reason, I am less concerned about fledgling anorexics using this book as a "how to" manual, and more worried that some people might see this book as Exhibit A of anorexia treatment. This in turn might prevent patients and their families from seeking the help that they so desperately need.
One other thing--we need to remember that Jen's story is viewed strictly through the lens of a sick girl and her grieving father. I would have liked some commentary from the mental health profession, like from a psychologist or psychiatrist who specializes in eating disorders. There were times when Jen's parents were advised to stay away from her, but that recommendation was likely more for the sanity of the parents than for the treatment of Jen.
Verdict: It's not a literary masterpiece, like "The Diary of Anne Frank." However, it deserves a spot in every high school, public, and medical library, as a chilling testament to one girl's life that went hellishly wrong and the betrayal by the very safeguards that had been set up to protect her in the first place.
Customer Reviews:
Not Bad.......2006-08-08
A good blend of new monsters and background information for one of Palladium's most promising pieces of real estate. A little heavy on personalities and light on adventures, but still worthwhile.
Average customer rating:
- A Must Read Series
- Moving along...
- Another great book!
- Blaine the Pain
- Very Pleased
|
The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower, Book 3)
Stephen King
Manufacturer: Signet
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Paperback
| King, Stephen
| ( K )
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King, Stephen
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Epic
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Similar Items:
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Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, Book 4)
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The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower, Book 2)
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The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, Book 1)
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Wolves of the Calla (The Dark Tower, Book 5)
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Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower, Book 6)
ASIN: 0451173317 |
Book Description
The foundations of Black House were built on The Dark Tower series
Customer Reviews:
A Must Read Series.......2007-10-09
Roland is the last living member of a knightly order known as gunslingers. The world he lives in is quite different from our own, yet it bears striking similarities to it. Politically organized along the lines of a feudal society, it shares technological and social characteristics with the American Old West, as well as bearing magical powers and the relics of a highly advanced, but long vanished, society. Roland's quest is to find the Dark Tower, a fabled building said to either be, or be located at, the nexus of all universes. Roland's world is said to have "moved on," and indeed it appears to be coming apart at the seams -- mighty nations are being torn apart by war, entire cities and regions vanish from the face of the earth without a trace, time does not flow in an orderly fashion; even the sun sometimes rises in the north and sets in the east. As the series opens, Roland's motives, goals, and even his age are unclear, though later installments shed light on these mysteries.
This series was mostly inspired by the epic poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" by Robert Browning, the full text of which was included in an appendix to the final volume. In the preface to the revised 2003 edition of The Gunslinger, King also identifies The Lord of the Rings, the Arthurian Legend, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as inspirations. He identifies Clint Eastwood's "Man with No Name" character as one of the major inspirations for Roland. King's style of location names in the series, such as Mid-World, and his development of a unique language abstract to our own, are also influenced by J. R. R. Tolkien's work.
The Dark Tower is often described in the novels as a real structure, and also as a metaphor. Part of Roland's fictional quest lies in discovering the true nature of the Tower. The series incorporates themes from multiple genres, including fantasy fiction, science fantasy, horror, and western elements. King has described the series as his magnum opus; beside the seven novels that comprise the series proper, many of his other books are related to the story, introducing concepts and characters that come into play as the series progresses.
Moving along..........2007-09-30
Now that the new characters are introduced and the party has gathered, we're actually starting on the quest for the Dark Tower! This one ends in a cliffhanger so now I have to read the next book! It's close, but not quite 5 stars yet. I'm still just barely able to put it down when I need to.
Another great book!.......2007-08-24
I read this novel in exactly two days and I finished it yesterday. It rocks! Stephen King's The Dark Tower series is great. If you liked the first two, then pick this book up and give it a go. You'll love it. I am currently reading part four and I will review it when I am done.
Blaine the Pain.......2007-06-29
After an amazing second book, the Dark Tower Series takes a nose dive back down. The adventure continues, but the action in this book is dismal. We find that Jake returns, finds a friend, gets captured, and then is saved. Blaine the Mono throws out his version of the Hobbit riddles. Then, in the end; wait, there isn't an ending. You know how you hate it when a weekly TV series throws "To be continued" on the screen. Well, expect to feel that way at the end of this book.
Very Pleased.......2007-06-28
Received very quickly and in excellent order. Made the remainder of my holiday very enjoyable!! Many thanks
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