More Than You Can Chew

June 1, 2004
Gr 8 Up-Marty has always been a fighter; she played on the boys' football team at school and battled feelings of love and hate for her alcoholic mother while at home. Now a senior, she brings every ounce of her aggressive attitude to Silver Lake, the facility where she is being treated for her eating disorder. While she is scornful of most of the therapy sessions and the staff, she does give credit to some, including Jackie, who offers hugs whether or not they are wanted. She also has her parents to contend with, especially her father, who does not show up for their first family session. The therapists gradually start to chip away at Marty's anger, and another patient, eight-year-old Lily, also helps bring out the teen's compassion and eventually her desire to live. Marty's anger seems more of a literary device to gain readers' attention than to provide actual character development. The metaphors are a bit heavy-handed and often cause the book to read like a soap opera. Finally, even though Marty receives postcards from her best friend while in the hospital, readers get no real sense of their relationship. Tokio's novel realistically depicts Marty's anorexia, but it has its share of problems.-Kelly Czarnecki, Bloomington Public Library, IL

Copyright 2004 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2004
Gr. 8-10. Call it ward humor: institutionalized anorexics lobby for a Cornish hen instead of a turkey at Thanksgiving; at art therapy sessions, the patients' black Crayolas are worn to stubs. Like other narrators of books in the disturbed-teen-girl genre, 17-year-old Marty, an anorexic-bulimic, begins her eight-month stay at "Camp Eat-a-Lot" with a penchant for dark comedy, bitterness toward her imperfect parents, and, above all, a determination to control her body. Not a new premise, to be sure, but perhaps because this is semiautobiographical, Marty's descriptions of eating are unusually visceral: "Every cell sucking back those calories. . . . Doing what a " weak "body does best." Reminiscent of Patricia McCormick's " Cut "(2001) in its chronicling of hospital routines interrupted by flashes of insight, Marty's struggles as she learns to take things "one day at a time" will satisfy teens' voracious appetites for novels about the disordered and disturbed. Their relief at Marty's recovery, though, may come mingled with nostalgia for the tough customer who once railed against therapeutic cliches.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)