Holy Anorexia

After finishing this book, I'm left a little disappointed. Holy Anorexia was supposed to be a book that examines the lives of italian female saints during the ~12-16th century and compares it to modern anorexic women and girls. That said, the book was written in 1985, and I feel like much has changed about "modern anorexia" since then... I feel like this originally proposed comparison was never fully realised, at least not to the extent that I was expecting. What this book did deliver on, was recounting the lives of many female saints, and presenting them as women that consistently went against the grain, against what was expected from a woman, and from a holy woman as well. In that aspect, the book was a worthwhile read. Religion and sainthood was one of the rare options for women to remove themselves from what was expected of them, and even then they risked being called heretics if they were too extreme. Either way, pretty interesting.

There was also some general feminist analysis done as well, but I wish the book went further in with the why's and how's. Some decent paragraphs and conclusions were made here or there, but I wish the research went in deeper!