The Definition of Beautiful
A Memoir
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The Definition of Beautiful
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Narrated by:
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Charlotte Bellows
About this listen
Shortlisted for the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize
A stunning memoir of coming of age and recovering from anorexia in the 2020s.
Charlotte Bellows wrote The Definition of Beautiful between the ages of 15 and 17, in the wake of lockdown and in recovery from anorexia. In the tradition of Sylvia Plath in The Bell Jar and Françoise Sagan in Bonjour Tristesse, Bellows writes with deceptively straightforward urgency, pushing through society's constraints on the bodies and minds of girls and women to offer a story both achingly familiar and devastatingly new.
In 2020, 14-year-old Charlotte's lifelong drive to achieve 'perfection' distorts into an all-encompassing obsession. Living between the suffocating world of lockdown and an uncanny dreamscape inhabited by competing avatars, Charlotte faces a parade of masked faces in hospital rooms, the aftermath of first love, the erosion of lifelong friendship, and the agony of seeing her illness devastate her family as it threatens to destroy her; as the world reopens, she finds new connections and mentors, new joy, new ways of thinking, new ways to be.
Charlotte Bellows offers a potent fusion of insight and innocence—a story for those who suffer or have suffered from eating disorders, but, more, a vital coming of age story of a young gay and artistic woman, tugged and throttled by a myriad of pressures, not least from the dark gravity that is the underside of her own creative drive.
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-
Story4 out of 5 stars 58
In this painfully moving memoir, take a firsthand look at anorexia through the eyes of a young girl. Even in kindergarten, Rachel Richards knows something isn't right. By leading us through her distorted thoughts, she shines a light on the experience and mystery of mental illness. As she grows up, unable to comprehend or communicate her inner trauma, Rachel lashes out, hurting herself, running away from home, and fighting her family. Restricting food gives her the control she craves. But after being hospitalized and force-fed, Rachel only retreats further into herself.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Gripping Account of Anorexia and Recovery
- By Nephi Ferguson on 10-12-17
By: Rachel Richards
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thinandbeautiful.com
- By: Liane Shaw
- Narrated by: Miranda Millar
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 5
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 4
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 4
Seventeen-year-old Maddie has always felt a hole in her life, but she has finally found a way to fill it with her quest to mold her body into her ideal, thinnest shape. When she comes across the world of “thinspiration” websites, where young people encourage each other in their mission to lose weight, she quickly becomes addicted. Finally, she has found a place where she is understood and where she can belong.
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5 out of 5 stars
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actually written by an anorexic
- By Dorain Shmlorian on 02-28-24
By: Liane Shaw
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Empty
- A Memoir
- By: Susan Burton
- Narrated by: Susan Burton
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 414
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 360
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 359
For almost 30 years, Susan Burton hid her obsession with food and the secret life of compulsive eating and starving that dominated her adolescence. This is the relentlessly honest, fiercely intelligent story of living with both anorexia and binge-eating disorder, moving past her shame, and learning to tell her secret.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Pick another book
- By A. I. Keller on 07-18-20
By: Susan Burton
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Thin Girls
- A Novel
- By: Diana Clarke
- Narrated by: Jayme Mattler
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 114
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Story4 out of 5 stars 96
Rose and Lily Winters are twins, as close as the bond implies; they feel each other’s emotions, taste what the other is feeling. Like most young women, they’ve struggled with their bodies and food since childhood, and high school finds them turning to food - or not - to battle the waves of insecurity and the yearning for popularity. But their connection can be as destructive as it is supportive, a yin to yang. When Rose stops eating, Lily starts - consuming everything Rose won’t or can’t.
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3 out of 5 stars
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nothing special
- By Drine on 10-11-20
By: Diana Clarke
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An Apple a Day
- A Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia
- By: Emma Woolf
- Narrated by: Emma Woolf
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 124
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4 out of 5 stars 111
I haven't tasted chocolate for over ten years and now I'm walking down the street unwrapping a Kit Kat. Remember when Kate Moss said, 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels'? She's wrong: chocolate does. At the age of 32, after ten years of hiding from the truth, Emma Woolf finally decided it was time to face the biggest challenge of her life. Addicted to hunger, exercise and control, she was juggling a full-blown eating disorder with a successful career, functioning on an apple a day.
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2 out of 5 stars
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A memoir of a silver spoon, maybe.
- By S. covely on 06-05-16
By: Emma Woolf
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Good Girls
- A Study and Story of Anorexia
- By: Hadley Freeman
- Narrated by: Hadley Freeman
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4 out of 5 stars 36
In 1995, Hadley Freeman wrote in her diary: “I just spent three years of my life in mental hospitals. So why am I crazier than I was before????” From the ages of 14 to 17, Freeman lived in psychiatric wards after developing anorexia nervosa. Her doctors informed her that her body was cannibalizing her muscles and heart for nutrition, but they could tell her little else: why she had it, what it felt like, what recovery looked like. For the next twenty years, Freeman lived as a “functioning anorexic,” grappling with new forms of self-destructive behavior as the anorexia mutated and persisted.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Has potential, but missed the mark.
- By Ian N. on 02-11-24
By: Hadley Freeman
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Size Zero
- My Life as a Disappearing Model
- By: Victoire Dauxerre
- Narrated by: Emily Lucienne
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 137
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 121
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Story4 out of 5 stars 122
memoir of a brief career as a top model - and a brutally honest account of what goes on behind the scenes in a fascinating closed industry. Scouted in the street when she was 17, Victoire Dauxerre's story started like a teenager's dream: within months she was on the catwalks of New York's major fashion shows and part of the most select circle of in-demand supermodels in the world.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Self-indulgent twaddle
- By Adeliese Baumann on 05-19-17
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More than a Number
- By: Tia Souders
- Narrated by: Sarah Brands
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 21
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 18
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 18
My sophomore year changed everything. I dropped 40 pounds after a stint in fat camp. Prior to losing weight, most of my time was spent comparing myself to my twin sister and trying to hide my cankles. But losing weight made all things seem possible. Now I'm popular, vying for the hottest guy in school and competing for a prom queen nomination. Finally, I'm getting noticed, and it's all because I dropped the pounds.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Skinny vs fat
- By Val on 05-28-20
By: Tia Souders
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Wasted
- A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
- By: Marya Hornbacher
- Narrated by: Marya Hornbacher
- Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 925
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 733
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 728
Precociously intelligent, imaginative, energetic, and ambitious, Marya Hornbacher grew up in a comfortable middle-class American home. At the age of 5, she returned home from ballet class one day, put on an enormous sweater, curled up on her bed, and cried because she thought she was fat. By age 9, she was secretly bulimic, throwing up at home after school, while watching Brady Bunch reruns on television and munching Fritos. She added anorexia to her repertoire a few years later and took great pride in her ability to starve. Marya's story gathers intensity with each passing year. By the time she is in college and working for a wire news service in Washington D.C., she is in the grip of a bout of anorexia so horrifying that it will forever put to rest the romance of wasting away. Down to 52 pounds and counting, Marya becomes a battlefield: her powerful death instinct at war with the will to live. Why would a talented young girl go through the looking glass and slip into a netherworld where up is down, food is greed, and death is honor? Why enter into a love affair with hunger, drugs, sex, and death? Marya Hornbacher sustained both anorexia and bulimia through 5 lengthy hospitalizations, endless therapy, the loss of family, friends, jobs, and ultimately, any sense of what it means to be "normal." In this vivid, emotionally wrenching memoir, she recreates the experience and illuminates the tangle of personal, family, and cultural causes underlying eating disorders.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Abridged=Horrible
- By Kelly on 05-05-13
By: Marya Hornbacher
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Unbearable Lightness
- A Story of Loss and Gain
- By: Portia de Rossi
- Narrated by: Portia de Rossi
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,177
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 923
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 920
In this searing, unflinchingly honest book, Portia de Rossi captures the complex emotional truth of what it is like when food, weight, and body image take priority over every other human impulse or action. She recounts the elaborate rituals around eating that came to dominate hours of every day, from keeping her daily calorie intake below 300 to eating precisely measured amounts of food out of specific bowls and only with certain utensils. When this wasn’t enough, she resorted to purging and compulsive physical exercise, driving her body and spirit to the breaking point.
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5 out of 5 stars
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For All Dieters, not just Anorexic Girls
- By Coghan on 02-20-13
By: Portia de Rossi
Honest, beautiful body of work
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Just so beautiful
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Sadly I was disappointed
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Puerile
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