Evanna Lynch made it very clear that she won't reveal numbers in any form in this book. At first, I thought that it was a bad decision, that it would leave the book incomplete without her mentioning her weight upheavals. But after I read the book, I saw the merit in her decision. Even for someone like me, far away from that extreme level of anorexia, I found her mention of some techniques very tempting to try. So it would have really messed up with the minds of those still struggling with their body image. Rovno poviem, že sa v ňom veľmi nedočítate o natáčaní HP, nenájdete tu veľa zaujímavých historiek a celkovo jej čas v Harrym Potterovi tu nie je opisovaný do detailov, čo je asi jediné, čo môžem knihe vytknúť, lebo samozrejme, že by som si priala, aby tam bolo toho viac. my unfortunate body? They have their own lives and bodies, and I have never tried to interfere with those And beneath its poignant surface are even deeper insights that seem to hold their weight from being hinted at than being definitively explored: existential questions surrounding the impossibility of living without an anchor in the world, however light or damaging; the crucial importance of having myths and characters to live in and embody for strength and wholeness; the solemn awareness that it is sometimes in our nature to stave off healing, even when it is within our grasp, because of our instinct that doing so would summon a horde of uncontrollable unknowns. And maybe I will live a happier, wilder, more colourful and unpredictable life if I can finally abandon the debilitating and brutal pursuit of perfection. If I can learn to love butterflies from afar, and watch them fly away.”

I firmly, firmly believe that J.K. Rowling had a hand in her casting as Luna, even though everyone involved keeps insisting that she didn't. What a coincidence that the troubled young girl who'd had frequent personal correspondence with J.K. herself was the one that finally got the role. The "She was promised the role by JK, and that's how she found the ~strength~ to beat anorexia!!" stories are definitely false, but I think that she saw the casting tapes of the finalists and recognized here there. Her getting cast completely independently, and then her penpal JK only learning that fact along with the rest of the world, is too good a story to be true imo. To Evanna Lynch herself, on the offchance that you ever actually visit this subreddit (in which case I hope you haven't ever found anything here in bad taste), thank you for sharing your story and I hope your self-love and self-acceptance only grows from here. You're making the world a brighter, spanglier place. A searing memoir from Harry Potter star and activist Evanna Lynch about the bravery it takes to embrace ourselves and our dreams while navigating the battle between perfection and creativity. It’s soul-crushing whilst being redemptive and forgiving. It shows the worst but delivers such hope and love that you feel liberated and seen.As well as charting her adolescent battle with anorexia, it offers a darkly compelling, highly topical account of journeying from girlhood to womanhood in the spotlight of global celebrity.’ The Mail on Sunday Creativity was this swirling wild mysterious language, but now I lived in a colorless angular world that promised me a certainty I valued above all else. And where before, I was just scribbling, writing, moving for the mere joy of it, now I tried to commodify my creativity. I tried to squeeze it out and make it do something worthwhile, be special, be important, be good. I could no longer see the point of art if it wasn’t good. There was too much potential and too much room to fail so day by day, I chose perfection over creativity. I chose no more creativity, and no more mistakes. It will get easier' is probably the most offensive thing you can day to someone in the grip of pain. You are borrowing from a future that isn't promised, a future that depends entirely on their endurance of the pain. You are taking for granted a well of strength within them that they may not possess, fast-forwarding through the ugly bits that you don't want to watch but they must live through, nonetheless. It is not a helpful thing to say to someone for whom only the present moment can exist, so vivid, so intense that it's not possible to imagine a moment beyond it." Pg 218 Creativity, she doesn’t fit in a box. She’s a wild, fluid, uncontrollable energy that spreads out sensuously from a curious, wide open mind, in large expanses of aimless time on dreamy liminal train journeys or in subtle moments between waking and sleep. She can’t be pushed or coughed up or beaten into submission by a brutal and unmerciful regime. She needs light and breath and space, and then, maybe, if the mood takes her, she’ll unfurl her wings and let her colours run into the atmosphere."

I am so tired of this game, the constant bargaining, the seemingly hourly negotiations to eat or not to eat. I just want to retire from eating, be done with the whole messy, unpalatable affair. Why do people have to eat so often, upwards of three, four, five times a day? Do they have nothing more interesting to do? Do people eat to live or live to eat? But creativity, she doesn’t fit in a box. She’s a wild, fluid, uncontrollable energy that spreads out sensuously from a curious, wide open mind in large expanses of aimless time on dreamy liminal train journeys or in subtle moments between waking and sleep. She can’t be pushed, or coughed up, or beaten into submission by a brutal and unmerciful regime. She needs light, and breath, and space and then, maybe, if the mood takes her, she’ll unfurl her wings and let her colors run into the atmosphere. And this energy, this wild, fun, unpredictable magic that I’d played with so happily as a child, that had flowed through me like it was my very life force up until this point; I didn’t understand it anymore. I don’t want people’s food or attention or sympathy or help. I don’t expect people to like or love me, and I don’t waste my time looking for it. If they could only feel all the self-loathing coursing through me, the visceral self-disgust, the ardent wish to be rescued from the unrelentingly awful reality of being in this body, maybe they’d be selfish too. All I want is to quietly withdraw from life – which is too difficult, too painful, too much for me to get a handle on – and all I am asking is that they leave me to it, to the safe, comfortable anaesthetising routine I’ve developed that feels much easier than living fully. Is it so selfish to self-preserve? Absolutely incredible. Lynch writes beautifully and brutally honestly about her childhood with anorexia and her relationship with her body. This was so impactful that I am not sure how I can justly summarise it in a few sentences, so I will instead include two quotes from the novel and highly recommend that if you are in a healthy place, you also read it:And it's not even all about her ED, or all about the Harry Potter stuff, though they're the biggest chunks of the book; it's also about her insecurities about becoming both a woman and an adult, trying to find her way in life like everyone else, her creative spirit, her love for animals, it's got it all. She did a FANTASTIC job recounting everything and presenting it in an interesting, honest, and thoughtful way. I was never bored with the book, and that rarely happens with nonfiction. I believe in the kind of fairy-tales that have depth, complexity, profundity and moments of darkness that birth a fiercer belief in the light’ Although it can be said that this is every memoirist’s role, there is an uncanny difference here. She seems at once to be sharing her story and subtly communicating the significance of stories themselves, their potent, enigmatic power to restore, to provide context to your growth, to offer love and comfort to a past version of yourself who, through your telling, find still to be alive. You can feel it in her voice, as she renders each line and character with intense reality. As someone who has breathed boundless praise on Potter, it’s clear this is a writer who has internalized and wholeheartedly partaken in the majesty of stories. Raw, frank and utterly heartfelt, but full of love and joy too, one of the most moving and uplifting memoirs I’ve ever read.’ Daisy Buchanan