Slim to None

Jennifer Hendricks

Feb 2003 · McGraw Hill Professional

About this eBook

A young woman's fatal battle with anorexia, in her own words

In the tradition of Go Ask Alice, Prozac Nation, and Girl Interrupted, Slim to None grants readers precious access to the emotional and psychological underpinnings of its author. Step-by-step, readers follow Jenny's long journey through a "wasteland" of failed treatments and therapies, false hope, and abuse by the mental health system that kept her captive most of her life.

Although this disease has been at the forefront of public awareness for years, anorexia continues to claim more victims than any other mental illness. Slim to None reveals the glaring inadequacy of the mental health system to treat and fully understand this disease.

The first journal of an anorexic to be published posthumously, the book discloses the innermost thoughts, fears, and hopes of a young girl stricken and fighting to recover.

Jenny Hendricks painstakingly recorded her experiences as she suffered from and eventually succumbed to this eating disorder. With candor, she recounts being shipped from one doctor to another and subjected to widely varying treatments--all of which ultimately proved unsuccessful. Her father, Gordon Hendricks, fills in this compelling narrative with his own memories of his daughter's struggle.

Ratings and reviews

Not fabulous (I will always be in awe of Wasted and the bar is set high there) but I have a lot of respect for the source of the material and the very real pain offered herein. At times I wanted to beat my head against a wall in frustration that mental healthcare could be so obtuse, but my own modern experience hasn't been amazing either. Not for lack of knowledge but for lack of resources and funding. That insurance covered so much here is an astonishing luxury to me.

About the author

Jennifer Hendricks was the valedictorian of her high school class but spent most of her last five years confined in hospitals. She weighed just forty-five pounds when she died at age twenty-five.

Gordon Hendricks, a retired CPA, has received several awards for excerpts from this book and continues to write for magazines and syndicated newspapers, including the Rocky Mountain News and Steamboat Today. He won third place in the Best of the West fiction contest for his story "The Prize." He lives with his wife in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.