This book was not for me
It is told in a shared narrative/perspective by both main characters, sisters Giselle and Holly, after Giselle comes home from a hospital stay for her battle with anorexia. There are also intermittent stories from the past as Giselle tries to find clues to solve the mystery of why her late father didn't love her. Holly's side of the story seems to deal more with adolescent life and struggles with school. While the title of the book is Skinny and there is some insight to Giselle's mind and experience with the disease--including a separate dialogue and narrative which represents the anorexic girl inside of her, telling her what to do and what to eat, as well as negative thoughts like how she's not good enough for love--I didn't feel that was an appropriate title for this book. It didn't seem that anorexia was that important or even the real problem of this book until the end. It seemed to be more about Giselle's desperation for love, especially from the one person she would never have it from--her dad. The beginning was long, a little boring and slow for me. I felt no connection to either character, but especially not with Holly, the younger of the two. While I liked Giselle's character for the most part, I didn't feel ANYTHING for her--no sadness, or hurt or any emotions, and the only time I did was about three-fourths through and even then it was slight. I also found some of the writing hard to follow. Sometimes getting mixed up in Giselle's present moment while she is also having a flashback and it becomes confusing. I also thought the separate parent's stories were not as big of a deal as the author posed them to be. The only romance in the book was between Giselle and her boyfriend Sol and it just fell flat for me. I couldn't see what they saw in each other or if they really even cared about one another. There's also a love triangle that develops and is really weird, confusing and seems unrealistic. I mean an older guy (I'm guessing about 18 or 19 because I don't believe the author ever divulged the age specifically; he does order alcohol but the book is set in Canada where I believe the drinking age is around 19.) who falls "in love" with an eighth grader? While I did not particularly enjoy this book, I did find some of the author's symbolic writing beautiful and sad. She had great descriptions for Giselle's imagery of what was happening in her mind compared to what was really happening around and to her. Overall, I thought the author had a good idea and a good storyline but maybe would have been better executed with only Giselle's voice and more about the power of the disease over her, more of the voice in her head and how it affects her everyday and probably less about the parents (even though I understand they played a big part in Giselle's problem) and either more about love or less about it all together.
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