Customer Reviews
A Godsend! - By: L. J. Eakin, 09 Dec 2007 
This book is amazing! As a sufferer of an eating disorder, I have wrestled with myself & searched for a way to express the feelings & a way to explain my actions that I experience during this stuggle. And I found itin this book. Not only will this book share the trauma of a fellow sufferer but Rachel Oakes Ash's witty humour brings relief & encouragement. I found this book so helpful that I lent it to my boyfriend to read as it said what I couldn't. This book is inspiring & a must for anyone who is looking for hope to overcome this illness.
Good Stuff - By: Emily, 03 Feb 2007 
I read this book as recommended by a nurse, whilstin hospital, & found it helpful, I certainly admired the honesty of the the author, & the self depricating look into her attitudes & behaiours whilst being ill, which I find many sufferers of eating disorders conveniently not mention. It was most refreshing to have a change of tone from "woes me".
However I feel there was a large emphasis placed on dieting, &in my personal belief, dieting & eating disorders are quite different, although I can appreciate how a society obsessed with diet regimes can make recovery from an eating disorder very difficult.
Allin all a well written book & definately worth a read.
A whirlwind of emotions - By: barenakedlady, 09 Apr 2006 
Rachel Oakes-Ash repeatedly emphasisesin Good Girls Do Swallow that she doesn't do things by halves. Everything is taken to extremes; this book is no exception. This is no gentle introduction to the world of eating disorders - the reader is taken on a rollercoaster journey of up, down, fat, thin, binge, starve, so quickly that it's almost hard to keep track of the cycle. An exhausting book to read, let alone to live.
Oakes-Ash's opinions on society's effect on eating disorders are slippedin neatly; the book isn't over-opinionated, but she offers some very well-written viewsin it. This is done without disturbing or interrupting the plot, so unintrusively that it would be worth re-reading the book purely to revisit her opinions on the origins of eating disorders, society's contribution to them, & etc.
GGDS is full of dark humour, & is written from a fairly reflective perspective of someone looking back on what she's done. A subtle vein of sarcasm is present throughout the whole book, as Oakes-Ash describes & occasionally mocks her own disordered thinking & behaviour. This would possibly make the book less triggering, were it not for the fact that it just seems so fast-paced that it's easy to be caught up by it. Fast-paced notin the sense that it's a gripping story - it's not - but to read it feels restless, like your thoughts are racing. Not recommended for the emotionally fragile!
Everything about yourself you thought you had hidden - By: Sandra G Moffat, 20 Feb 2006 Rachael really brings to light everything that you feel & have ever felt about food, life, yourself & about peoples perceptions She throws a spannerin the works of every promoter of 'skinny' & by the end of the book you feel renewed & happy that life can be good even if you eat. I think it should be made educational meterial for school girls as they hit puberty. sgm.
A Fantastic Book! - By: Ella, 05 Dec 2004 A darkly comic look at the tragic world of eating disorders. Books on this subject often tend to lean towards melodrama, but Oakes-Ash writesin a less serious, lighter way, thst helps to make the words more accesible to the reader. Any woman who reads this, whether they have an eating disorder or not, will certaintly recognize aspects of their own personalityin Rachael's story. The fact that Oakes suffered anorexia, bulimia & copulsive overeating means that the story fundementally covers all basis on the eating disorder spectrum, & provides a range of varied perspectives.
The most impressive aspect of the book is the sheer frankness of the author's writing. She is refreshingly honest, telling her storyin graphic detail whilst resisting the urge to 'sugar-coat' her biographyin order to make herself look better. It is this openness - this baring of the soul - that makes the reader immediately warm to Rachael, a factor which helps to make her words & her underlying message seem so much more genuine than the usual crop of 'Self-help' books that are dominating the market at the moment.
