One thing I always ask when I read memoirs is, "Why was this written?" Usually, the answer for celebrity memoirs is "to make money". (See Lynch's Harry Potter costar, Tom Felton, for a Platonic example of The Celebrity Memoir.) But Lynch answers this question directly, over and over again: she's doing this to set the record straight. People have asked her so much about her experience with anorexia and how she "overcame it". They've misrepresented it. They've yearn for her positivity and guidance, of which she's never felt like she has to give. So she wrote The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting to set the record straight - and it explain that it is not, and has never been, as easy or simple as short news articles make it out to be. And I'll be honest, I think that's a damn good reason to write a memoir. 

On top of her clear and meaningful purpose, Lynch also has a strong, engaging, and clever voice, one that is real to the point of brutality. I've never had an eating disorder, but I do have OCD and chronic depression, and the way Lynch describes negative thought patterns, control-based mental illnesses and coping mechanisms, and just how vicious and cruel it is to sit with yourself at the height of self-hatred is extraordinarily accurate. Scarily so, at times. 

I can't say I agree with all of Lynch's takes - the way she feels about leather, and astrology, and JK Rowling, are all things that make me exasperated, a bit. But I do agree with the overall message of her book, about the messy complications of "recovery", of our cultural misunderstanding of it, of how our medical institutions dehumanize patients "for their own good", and how fear and control are tools that we use to lock ourselves away from life. 

Also, if you like dark humor, she's fucking hilarious.