CW: eating disorder, dealing with loss of mother through illness, suicide, mental health

I don't know if this is a good, accurate or respectful exploration of someone developing an eating disorder but I liked how it was an aspiration that gradually developed into this all consuming beast that poisoned all aspects of her life. I had to dig deep to push through the very slow first half and I didn't 'enjoy' the novel, but I was invested enough to want to know how things turned out. ( )

This is not my idea of a fun read. I HATE poetry, and this entire novel is in freeform poetry, not prose. And, while I sympathize with the teenage perspective (or lack of perspective) that makes one's boyfriend and other teen relationships seem so much more important than they will probably turn out to be in the long run, I did not like Rae, the main character. Sure, she has a mental illness which manifests as an eating disorder, but she is also so self-centered and closed-minded that I couldn't sympathize with her very well.
This book does show how people with eating disorders attach extra meanings to food so that it becomes symbolic of all sorts of other stuff; it is easy to see from this book how eating disorders are not really about food, or necessarily about body image and vanity. And, while the character in this book (and probably the author as well) manifests her illness in the form of excessive dieting (not eating), this same meaning-laden approach to food also could lead to eating too much (comfort eating).
I still wish this had been a prose book, but I liked it better than I expected, and would recommend it. ( )