If You're Curious About These Questions...
You should listen to this audiobook
- Have you ever wondered why the most 'perfect' and high-achieving girls are often the ones most vulnerable to the grip of a life-threatening eating disorder?
- Did you know that the path to recovery from anorexia involves unlearning a lifetime of cultural messages that teach women that their value is found in being as small as possible?
- What if the secret to moving past years of psychiatric treatment isn't just finding a cure, but discovering how to transform a 'stubborn' illness into a resilient, joyful life?
Listen to Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia — Free Audiobook
Key Takeaways from Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia
- — The Rule That Shrinks the World
- — The Trigger and the Tilt
- — The Soil Where Anorexia Grows
- — The Making of a Good Girl
- — Two Selves and a Biscuit
Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia — Full Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: Recommendation
Chapter 2: The Rule That Shrinks the World
Chapter 3: The Trigger and the Tilt
Chapter 4: The Soil Where Anorexia Grows
Chapter 5: The Making of a Good Girl
Chapter 6: Two Selves and a Biscuit
Chapter 7: Hospital One: Survival and Its Costs
Chapter 8: Alison: Illness Through a Lifetime
Chapter 9: Mothers, Daughters, and the Air They Breathe
Chapter 10: Learning to Speak “Anorexia”
Chapter 11: The Revolving Door
Chapter 12: Fritha: Success on a Tightrope
Chapter 13: Losing Doctors, Losing School
Chapter 14: Chaos and a Shift: Hospitals Three and Four
Chapter 15: Ger: Unfinished and Still Going
Chapter 16: The Sick Girl Fantasy
Chapter 17: Toast, Exams, and a Glimpse of Future
Chapter 18: When Anorexia Becomes Germs
Chapter 19: Oxford: Hiding in Plain Sight
Chapter 20: Fashion: Mirror, Not Cause
Chapter 21: Amanda: Purpose Versus the Void
Chapter 22: Swapping Compulsions
Chapter 23: New York, the Schwartz, and Twins
Chapter 24: Looking Back, Looking Forward
Chapter 25: Choosing a Bigger Life
Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia Summary & Overview
Good Girls is Hadley Freeman’s unflinching account of becoming dangerously ill with anorexia as a teenager, spending years in psychiatric hospitals, and the long, complicated road to a functional, joyful adulthood. Blending personal memoir with reporting, Freeman threads together ward memories, conversations with former fellow patients, interviews with leading clinicians and researchers, and clear-eyed reflections on the culture that teaches girls to be small. The result is a humane, often funny, and always honest portrait of a stubborn illness—and the resilient, complex people who live through it.
Who Should Listen to Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia?
- Parents and partners supporting someone with an eating disorder
- Clinicians and educators seeking a lived-experience lens alongside research
- Anyone who grew up as a perfectionist good girl and wants a bigger life
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