GHOST

A survivor escapes the stranglehold of body dysphoria in this debut memoir/self-help book.

Holloway recounts wrenching personal experiences to convey a life-changing message to the kindred spirits she calls “ghost women.” These are women who hide behind their shame-filled compulsion to be perfect. For the author, that translated into being beyond skinny. Her recollections should help readers escape the malevolent force (“the beast”) that drove her to endure 15 years of eating disorders. Holloway’s damaged “inner child” made her a slave to her body image early on. At the age of 7, she was weighing herself and sucking in her stomach when she looked in the mirror. Her escalating desperation to “shrink” affected her mentally and physically. She didn’t attend her beloved grandfather’s funeral because she was driven to “be thin” by a looming date (“His death was inconvenient”). In her 20s, she cut 10 inches off her hair, believing that it would reduce her weight. When the numbers on the scale went up the next day, she wanted to die, a recurring theme in the absorbing book. Holloway writes with flair and creative turns of phrase. Playing the ghost woman, she writes, is “a sick form of method acting.” She skillfully details her weight battles. Her one-hour daily run stretched into a four-hour torture trail. She hung on bars in the gym to the point of exhaustion until, hands bleeding, she dropped to the floor and sobbed. Starvation alternated with binge-eating (sometimes she devoured 10,000 calories a day). The author deftly traces her torturous journey to recovery but offers hope (“Ghost Women become the destroyers of our old lives, and the creators of new ones”). The reckoning came when she started “getting fat” and she faced the horrifying reality that dieting no longer worked for her—and never would again. Out went her weapons of self-destruction: scales, measuring cups, and calorie-tracking apps. She gave herself carte blanche to eat whatever and whenever she wanted, reached a healthy weight, and has continued to live that way. Readers should find encouragement in these pages. The author delivers a valuable lesson, telling her readers that if she could put dangerous dieting behavior behind her, so can they.

Women with eating disorders will find a lifeline to recovery in this engrossing account.