Hungry Ghost by Victoria Ying

Hungry Ghost is a touching graphic novel about one girl's journey out of an eating disorder, towards self-acceptance, self-love and healing. 

For as long as Valerie Chu can remember, her mother has watched what she eats. She remembers the birthday party where she first met Jordan, her best friend and where she was told to taste and not eat. Valerie has always wanted to be "gwai" or good or obedient.

But at school, although Val gets  good marks, she forces herself to throw up in the school washroom. To Val, it's something she has to do to be pretty. Val's mother reaffirms this belief when she remarks how fat her friend is when she sees Val walking home with Jordan. Val finds it comforting to "get rid" of the food she eats at family dinners. She also spends a lot of time online looking at other people's bodies and comparing them to hers.

When Val, Jordan and their friend Allan hang out together, Val tells them that her father is planning a trip to Base Camp 1 at Mount Everest. During this time with her friends, Val finds herself wishing that she and Allan were together. When they order burgers at the Fender Bender, Val is glad she purged earlier in the night, after dinner at home. But the time with her friends is stressful for Val who believes that in order to be liked by boys she has to be thin

Lunar New Year celebrations turn out to be very challenging for Val, with extended family visiting to celebrate. Val gets mixed messages: Auntie Shelby warns her not to get fat, while Auntie Nikki tells her she's beautiful. Val struggles with her need to purge after eating. When her mother serves pig trotters and dumplings, Val is conflicted over whether she should eat.

At a family meeting prior to his trip to Everest, Val's father briefs them on what to do if he doesn't survive. This is something he does frequently, as he loves to embark on challenging adventures.

As her father embarks on his trip, Val along with Jordan and their classmates travel to Paris, France. It's her first trip away from home, with friends and with a boy - Allan whom she is crushing on. For Val, Paris is the most romantic city in the world, and who knows what will happen between her and Allan? At dinner, Mrs. Owens encourages the students to order in French but Val notices the menu has lots of carbs and wonders how the French women stay so thin. Jordan doesn't care and Allan never noticed.

Dinner creates more stress as Val can't use a bathroom right away to purge. Eventually she becomes so distraught over eating dinner that even a moment alone with Allan in the art museum can't stop her from rushing to the bathroom to purge. Sensing Val is distressed about something, Jordan takes her on a impromptu exploration of the city, looking at fashion and eating delicious crepes. But when Val posts a picture of herself eating the crepe on Instagram, her mother responds critically.

Val's Paris trip is cut short when she is awoken during the night to learn that her father's plane on the way to Everest has crashed. She returns home to San Jose to find her mother unable to cope and mostly sleeping. However, after the funeral Val's mother continues to monitor her eating and calories. 

But coping with her father's death and her mother's control are not all Val must contend with. When she learns that her friend Allan has chosen Jordan over her, Val is forced to confront her own feelings about her body and how she views others. She must also decide whether she is going to live life on her own terms or those her of her mother.

Discussion

Hungry Ghost was written by Victoria Ying, a young writer who herself has struggled with an eating disorder and now considers herself fully recovered. In her Afterword, Ying writes, 

"When you have an eating disorder, all you can think about is food. First in the eating of it, and then in the guilt around having eaten it. It's an exhausting state of being.
I freed myself by letting go of any expectation for my body to fit the cultural ideal. I chose to be free, and I've never been happier."

In Hungry Ghost, Valerie, believes that being thin will make her happy. This is something she has learned from her mother who often makes comments about Val's friend, Jordan who has a full figure. Val thinks, "Poor Jordan. She's my favorite person in the whole world, but a football player wouldn't look at her twice." 

For Val, looking pretty takes work...and pain and sacrifice. Keeping herself thin is equated with "being good". She does this by eating and then purging, an eating disorder known as bulimia. Val can appear to eat normally but purges afterwards, so she looks normal to her friends and family. She describes it as making her feel "warm, comforted." Her purging allows Val to hide her eating disorder and blend in. 

While Val's mother treats her as though she doesn't think about what she's eating, in fact, it becomes apparent that this is all Val is thinking about. Her brief time in Paris sees her quickly notice the bodies of the French women there,  in contrast to her classmates who are busy enjoying the sights and sounds of Paris. After eating, Val becomes consumed with the task of finding a washroom to purge the calories she just consumed. However, at the same time, Val is beginning to notice that her friend Jordan, is a very happy person despite having a different body shape -despite being what her mother labels as "fat". For the first time Val asks herself, "Why am I so afraid? Maybe it doesn't take being thin to be....happy."

Her father's death forces Val to re-evaluate her own life. Val's father lived life on his own terms without any regrets. However, Val feels like she's "lived like a prisoner to my body." She believes her father would be disappointed in her. She wonders "Will people care that much about my body when I die? Am I my body?...How can this thing, this thing that I hate -- how could anyone care about it that much?"

The crisis point comes when Jordan visits Val after returning home from the Paris trip and reveals that she and Allan kissed at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Shocked, Val asks Jordan why Allan would choose her, since she is not pretty and she's fat. Jordan can't believe that her best friend sees her as "fat and ugly" and she leaves. Later on, at dinner in a hotel, Val admits to her mother that she purges but the only thing that matter sto her mother is that Val is thin. At this point though, Val has made huge strides because she has admitted to her mother that she is sick.

It is Val's Aunt Nikki who helps set her on the path to recovery. She explains that although Val's mother loves her in the best way she knows how, it might  not be enough. Aunt Nikki advises that Val will have to find her own way to be happy. To that end, Val apologizes to Jordan and courageously reveals her illness to her best friend. This is a wonderful act of courage, as those with eating disorders often experience profound guilt and shame. Val tells Jordan that she believed that a person has to be thin to be happy but now realizes that she was self-centered and understands that being happy with who you are is the best way. With counselling and the decision to attend the school she wants instead of staying home with her mother, Val begins to heal and to have some self-acceptance. It is her choice to get better.

Ying has written a truly touching and deeply emotional story that promises to encourage those who are struggling with an eating disorder - and to offer them the hope that healing is possible. Although the novel makes it sound like a few counselling sessions and some deep thinking can cure an eating disorder, Hungry Ghost does get across the important message that first steps include acknowledging their illness,  and making the decision to seek help - sometimes referred to as taking ownership of their illness.  Val did all of this and although we don't know the end of the story, the novel does end on a very positive and hopeful tone.

Congratulations to Victoria Ying for writing such a difficult story. She too reflects the courage and determination of her character Valerie Chu. 

Book Details:

Hungry Ghost by Victoria Ying
New York: First Second    2023

200 pp.

What I Lost by Alexandra Ballard

Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Barnes finds herself entering Wallingfield Psychiatric Facility for treatment of her anorexia. In the lobby Elizabeth meets Lexi a very thin girl from Long Island Massapequa who will be her roommate. Elizabeth and her parents meet Elizabeth's therapist,  Mary who  tells them that it is almost snack time. Mary explains that every day the girls meet in the dining room for breakfast, lunch and dinner and that there are three snacks each day. Sally the nutritionist will work with Elizabeth to set up a meal plan and at every meal a nurse will check to see that everything has been eaten. Every morning weights and vitals are taken but numbers are not revealed. Elizabeth is also scheduled to have a bone density test done. 

First snack is horrifying to Elizabeth because it consists of milk, one muffin and one apple. Willa tells her if she doesn't eat, Kay the mean monitor will force her to drink Ensure. Elizabeth is unable to eat most of her snack but Kay lets her off because it's her first day. Willa who has hidden all of her muffin under her shoe has to drink an Ensure.

Elizabeth's roommate Lexi who exercises at night, tells Elizabeth she has been in treatment before and has had both an nasogastric tube and a stomach tube. Elizabeth's first breakfast is a nightmare as she struggles to eat all the food on her plate. Not being used to so much food at once, she vomits up her breakfast and is made to drink Ensure. Lunch is even more difficult, because it includes salad with a dressing.

Group therapy for Elizabeth's cohort is run by Marci, a twenty-something counselor. This group includes Elizabeth, Lexi, Willa, Beth, Jean and Margot Camby who is someone Elizabeth once knew from ballet class when she was six years old. None of the girls are eager to participate but to spare Margot, Elizabeth mentions about hating the lanugo (fine hair) that is growing all over her body.

Lunch is even more difficult for Elizabeth; she manages to eat everything but the salad which she must eat with salad dressing that she describes as "unhealthy" and "disgusting". Kay insists that she will have to drink an Ensure but with the support of Willa and Lexi,  Elizabeth manages to eat the salad.

As Elizabeth goes through treatment, she discovers an inner strength she didn't know she had. That courage will be needed as she confronts her own problems, struggles to deal with her parents and must find her place at school where she faces bullies and the fallout from social media.

Discussion

What I Lost offers a poignant, candid treatment of anorexia that will help readers better empathize and understand this serious mental health illness.  Ballard knows her subject well and has captured many of the ritualistic behaviours and the thoughts experienced by those with an eating disorder. Through the experiences of both the main character, Elizabeth Barnes and several of the secondary characters, the author also demonstrates how difficult it can be to overcome anorexia. She also presents some of the consequences anorexia can have on the body, but also offers hope to those who are impacted by anorexia.

What I Lost begins with Elizabeth's admittance to a treatment facility and focuses on portraying her struggle towards recovery. When Elizabeth arrives at Wallingfield she is in a state of denial; she believes she doesn't belong there. But her frame of mind is quickly revealed when she catches a glance of herself in the mirror above the fireplace in the common room. "That girl made me sick. I hated catching glimpses of her. It didn't matter where --whether in a mirror, or a window reflection, or on my phone screen after a group selfie."

Her state of mind reveals that she is focused on being thin, especially when she sees Lexi. "Her purple hoodie and black leggings hung off her like clothes on a hanger, and her legs, folded beneath her, were so thin they made her feet look too big for her body. My cheeks burned. I felt inferior. She was so much skinnier than me." Elizabeth notes that although she has her dad's genes, she is now skinnier than her mom, something she is proud of.

However Elizabeth's illness quickly manifests itself at Wallingfield when she struggles to eat her first snack. Unlike some of the other girls there however, Elizabeth does force herself to eat. This is a hint that deep down, Elizabeth wants to get well. This is further demonstrated when Lexi explains how the treatment center works. "You can either refuse to do everything, and then eventually they'll kick you out...Or you can do what they tell you, get fat, and go home.." But Elizabeth wonders "What about girls who want to get well?", a thought she quickly suppresses.

After her first group therapy session Elizabeth realizes that she feels understood at Wallingfield but she also wants to go home and have a normal life. "These girls got me. And yet...a part of me wanted to cry. This wasn't normal. I wanted to be home, listening to Spotify with Katrina, studying for my SAT's, reading Hamlet, and training for states with my cross-country team."

In therapy Elizabeth begins to explore some of the factors that have led her to where she is now. Elizabeth believes that her mother wants her to be thin. At first she can't tell Mary this because she doesn't know how she will react. Elizabeth knows her mother has "expectations" or hopes. "Hopes for my appearance, anyway." Memory of a shopping trip to Macy's brings up what Elizabeth's mother's hopes are. "Our shopping trips usually led to horrible fights where I begged her to leave me alone and she told me that if I let her dress me, I'd look great. You just have to purchase the right clothes for your figure, she'd say. You don't have the right body for the juniors' department. But the juniors department was where all my friends shopped, and I wanted to shop there too. And sometimes the things she hated on me, I didn't think looked that bad. Until she pointed out the flaws -- my hips, my thighs, my chubby knees." 

When her parents become involved in both group and family therapy Elizabeth must deal with intense conflict as she begins to realize that her mother's view of food is not a healthy one. In family group therapy Elizabeth decides to be honest about what's happening. "No one would ever have guessed my mom was anything besides a naturally thin woman who'd won the genetic lottery unless they ate with her." During a family phone call that includes her therapist, Elizabeth realizes that her mother's behaviour during meals makes her feel "ashamed that I was such a pig" and "ashamed of my appetite". Her parents' inability to confront this leaves Elizabeth feeling vulnerable and disappointed. Eventually Elizabeth is forced to confront her parents over her mother's disordered eating during the facility's lunch with parents. " 'Mom! It is so hard to eat when you're acting like that. You're supposed to model normal behavior for me!' Before Wallingfield I'd watch Mom eat and feel guilty if I ate more than she did. Now, though, I saw her eating for what it was. Screwed up..." As Elizabeth gets further into her recovery she recognizes her mother's disordered eating and understands her denial because she experienced the same thing.

Seeing the other girls struggling with the effects of anorexia on their bodies has a lasting impact on Elizabeth. When Lexi reveals that her anorexia has damaged her heart possibly irreparably, she tells Elizabeth "Be scared for yourself. Really, really scared, because that's what's going to make you better." Elizabeth knows from her previous support group twenty percent of girls never recover from anorexia and she doesn't want to be one of those girls. Yet Elizabeth continues to struggle. When Sally meets with her to plan  her meals, Elizabeth has the unrealistic expectation that she can cure herself while limiting her food to 800 calories per day. At the same time Elizabeth knows she has to eat if she wants to recover - a conundrum for many people suffering from anorexia. Elizabeth knows the increased food intake is changing her body and she states, "I was mourning the body I was losing each day a little, too."

As is the case with many girls with anorexia, eating begins to heal the body and the brain, something Elizabeth soon begins to recognize. "I did have things to be happy about. I'd finished my lunch. In fact, I was proud to report that I'd finished every meal and snack in the past week. Because of that, I felt better both in my body and my brain. I wasn't psyched to be gaining weight, but my thoughts were clearer and they moved through my head faster." 

In the end several factors help Elizabeth to eat and begin to recover; she begins to confront the unhealthy approach to eating that her mother has and how that has affected her, she fears damaging her body as Lexi and Margot have done, and she realizes that she wants her life back and wants to be healthy. Ballard makes all of this seem realistic because Elizabeth still struggles with how she views her body. "I did want to stay how I was and eat pancakes. There were healthy size 0 girls. Why couldn't I be one?" The most important thing is that Elizabeth decides to get well for herself. "And right then I knew. If I went home and started to restrict my eating again, I would shrivel up like a dry plant. If I ever wanted to run again -- to live again-- I'd have to get better. And I'd have to do it for me."

And when she returns home, she almost immediately falls into her old pattern of lying and trying to get around eating. This too is a realistic portrayal. In the end, it is Elizabeth who owns her illness and decides she wants to recover. "Did I want to spend my life bouncing in and out of treatment centers, have bone scans and waiting for the bad one?...If I skipped lunch I'd find a way to skip dinner. Then breakfast, and lunch, and dinner again. It wasn't a slippery slope. It was a straight free fall, and I knew it." 

Ballard includes several subplots involving Elizabeth's friends which serve to provide context and setting later on in the novel when Elizabeth is released from treatment and must return to school. Elizabeth receives a series of mysterious packages which she believes comes from her ex-boyfriend. Ultimately, these packages help her to work through what happened between them, to heal from that experience and to recognize her own strength. There is also a second storyline involving her continued bullying by a classmate which Elizabeth faces with grace and courage. With her new found strength, Elizabeth with the help of friends and family, confronts these challenges and continues to move forward.

Overall What I Lost is a realistic portrayal of someone struggling with an eating disorder. While Elizabeth's recovery may seem somewhat fast-tracked, her timeline of actively restricting is relatively short. The longer disordered eating occurs, the more entrenched the behaviours become and the more difficult it is to remove them and the accompanying thoughts. Balland undertook considerable research for her book and this is evident throughout. The ending is positive and hopeful  - which is something people with an eating disorder need to know. Recovery is difficult and hard work but there is hope!

Book Details:

What I Lost by Alexandra Ballard
New York: Farrar Straus Giroux      2017
390 pp.

This Impossible Light by Lily Myers

This Impossible Light by slam poetry sensation Lily Myers tackles a slew of issues centered on body image, divorce and loneliness.

Fifteen-year-old Ivy Lewis's world is torn apart when her father leaves her mother. She doesn't know if her father left or her mother made him leave. All she knows is that one Sunday in June they decided things were not working. The novel begins three months after Ivy's father has left and Ivy and her mother are like "planets in constant orbit", never really connecting on any level. Her father moved to a modern condo downtown which Ivy has visited twice, the second time finding a photo of his new girlfriend. Since then, Ivy has not returned, instead meeting him for pizza or seeing a movie together with her brother Sky.

Ivy's mother is unable to cope with the divorce. After her father left, Ivy's mother has pulled away, often drinking or staying in her bedroom. Meanwhile Sky has left home to attend cooking school, leaving Ivy alone with her mother and their empty, silent home. Ivy hopes the beginning of the school year will be her salvation. She's going into grade 10 and loves school because it organizes her day, she can reconnect with her best friend Anna and she starts calculus.Ivy loves math with its unchanging numbers and equations with a solution.
"Numbers never decide one day
they are
         just not working...
Numbers keep their promises."

It's at this time that Ivy notices changes in her body; she's bigger, has breasts, her hips are fuller and she's taller. In contrast, Ivy's mother is bony and fragile. Ivy notes that she's grown two inches over the summer. Ivy doesn't want to be six feet tall like her brother and father. She wants to be small and compact so she can be "curled up, safe."

Ivy's plan is to go to a top school to study organic chemistry and advanced calculus and become an engineer. She refers to herself as Smart Girl who makes responsible choices. At school Ivy meets her best friend Anna who's been away all summer in France, living with her mother and taking French. Ivy and Anna's reunion does not go as Ivy anticipated. Instead she finds Anna has a new friend, Raquel whom she met in France. While Anna and Raquel share stories about their time in France, Ivy feels left out. In calculus class, Ivy, the only sophomore in the junior class meets their new teacher, Ms. Fulton.

As the school days pass, Ivy finds herself reminiscing about how her mother and father were before they split up and how good her family life was. Ignored by her mother who is struggling to cope with the breakup of her marriage and her friend Anna, Ivy turns inward focusing on her body. A sleepover with Anna reinforces how much they've grown apart. While Ivy still loves Wicked, Anna has moved on to boys, smoking and drinking. After the sleepover, Ivy goes home to an empty house and ends up biking so she can't think about what's happened to her family and to her and Anna. At home, Ivy orders a pizza and eats all of it. Disgusted with herself, she goes into the bathroom and makes herself vomit it up.

School continues to go well for Ivy as she does the extra math problems Ms. Fulton assigns. Ms. Fulton recognizing Ivy's ability, offers her a chance to apply to the statewide mathematics competition. Ivy is ecstatic because she feels this is the first step in her plan to get away from home. She researches top engineering programs and begins planning how "Smart Girl" can get out like her brother Sky did.

But when her friendship with Anna falls apart and her mother slips deeper into depression, Ivy feels her life slipping out of control. Critical of her changing body she begins exercising and restricting her food intake. At first Ivy finds she can keep up her school work, but soon restricting, purging and counting calories consumes her life. It isn't until a serious accident forces Ivy to face her problems that she begins to accept herself and her life.

Discussion

This Impossible Light tells the story of a young girl whose world falls apart after her parents break-up and her journey towards healing and learning to live again. Myers has used free verse to tell Ivy's story, breaking her poetry into five sections titled Unknown Variables, Compression, Limits, Discontinuous Function and Exponential Growth. Each title is a math term, reflective of Ivy's love of mathematics but is also representative of Ivy's life. For example in Unknown Variables her life is changing rapidly; her parents' marriage breaks up and her friend Anna returns from France a very different person. In Limits, Ivy's body finally reaches its limit when she passes out on her bike and crashes.

The first set of poems in This Impossible Light are truly heartbreaking as they chronicle the break-up of Ivy's family when her father leaves and the effect her parents divorce has on her. The loss of her father affects Ivy deeply. She describes her
"Dad making soup on Sunday afternoons
in a huge pot on the stove
belting jazz standards as he stirred."

Her parents separating destroys the family life Ivy loved so much and in several poems Ivy reminisces.
"All of us driving every summer
to the Oregon Coast...

All of us around the coffee table
playing charades.
Me, seven or eight,
running excitedly around the living room."

Post-breakup, Ivy has to deal with her father having a new girlfriend who is described as "redheaded, round-faced, smiling." In the poem "A Few Weeks", Ivy confronts her father, refusing to accept his attempted "explanation" of why he had to leave.

After describing the back story to Ivy's life, Myers chronicles her spiral into a serious eating disorder and the beginnings of her recovery. When her relationship with her parents breaks down and her friendship with Anna collapses, Ivy turns inward in an attempt to control her life.  At first Ivy identifies herself as a "Smart Girl", someone with goals and high expectations who plans to be an engineer. As a "Smart Girl" she doesn't smoke, flunk a test on purpose, or "stay up all night eating cereal and ice cream." She makes responsible choices like going to bed early, getting A's and exercising. But Ivy wishes that sometimes she could do some of those things. In the poem, "It's Not", Ivy states that this is how she "understands" she's supposed to be because she's always been told she's smart.
"When you're told enough times
the way that you are
it doesn't seem like
you're allowed to be
anything
else."

But soon she becomes critical of herself, noticing that her body has changed; she is getting taller and bigger. Ivy doesn't want to do this, instead she wants to be small and compact - "able to curl up into small shapes like I used to." Myer draws in several of the typical social influences that girls like Ivy are exposed to today; teen girls focused on their bodies (Anna hates how her legs are muscular from soccer), the emphasis on looking beautiful, and the effect of ads for diet pills. Girls who wear perfectly fitting jeans and no frizz hair are seen to be in control. In the poem "When I Pass", Ivy states,
"The skinny bodies say: Keep going, you're almost there.
The round bodies say: This is what happens when you lose control."
It's no wonder Ivy comes to believe she is not "good, responsible, careful, strong or healthy."

When Ivy is confronted by the doctor after her accident about her eating habits she struggles to understand that what she's been doing is wrong because she was trying to be good. Wasn't she merely doing what everyone else seems to be doing? Fortunately for Ivy, she is able to tell her mother, who suddenly becomes attentive to her needs, about what has been going on inside her. Ivy's openness about her eating disorder is unusual as most teens with eating disorders take some time to admit they have a problem and to actually own their illness. Ivy is helped by her mother's admission about her own struggle with anorexia and how these thoughts might always be with her. Her mother encourages Ivy to seek help, because "this isn't something you can control on your own."

Although Ivy's swift recovery is a bit misleading, Myers does a good job of showcasing some of the characteristics of eating disorders and how adults can help. In the poems, "Mom's Words" and "You Know" which involve Ivy's therapist, Dr. Clarke,  control is identified as a major component of eating disorders.  Dr. Clarke gives Ivy permission to grieve over the loss of her parents, validating her pain.  With the support of her mother and her specialists, Ivy begins her path to recovery. Acknowledging her pain over the divorce also leads her to talk to Anna and restart their friendship.

This Impossible Light is a brutally honest portrayal of the effects of divorce on children (and those left behind), and how one girl took her pain out on her own body. It acknowledges the pain that divorce inflicts on children, something many adults are unwilling to recognize. Myers, who is a self-described writer, feminist and witch, has given voice to two very important issues many teens have to confront in our post-modern world.

Book Details:

This Impossible Light by Lily Myers
New York: Philomel Books        2017
339 pp.

A Trick of The Light by Lois Metzger

"Anorexia takes a terrific person and turns him into a lying, moody, deceitful, self-centered manipulator."
                                                                                                              Darpana

Lois Metzger has written a novel that accurately and with great sensitivity, explores the world of anorexia and bulimia. A Trick of The Light specifically deals with a teenage boy who develops anorexia when his family experiences a crisis. Anorexia is a hidden disease among adolescent boys because it isn't as common among males and it also doesn't have the apparent physical repercussions that starvation has on the female body.

Mike Welles is a fifteen year old who lives in Belle Heights in Queens, New York. Mike's mom Regina (Gina) is a professional organizer and his father, Douglas, is a lawyer.

Mike and his best friend, Tamio Weissberg have just seen the 1933 version of King Kong at the neighbourhood theatre that shows only classics. Mike and Tamio met in sixth grade at Belle Heights Middle School and have been friends ever since. They share a love of stop animation or stop motion cinematography.

Shortly after this and before the beginning of grade ten, Mikes family begins to fall apart. His mom seems to spend most of her time sleeping and not going to work. When she does to to work, she seems disorganized and struggling. At the same time, Mike's father is never home, instead focusing on working out at the gym. Mike enjoys eating but one day notices that he has been gaining weight, particularly around his belly.  When he asks his father if he can accompany him to the gym his father refuses, much to Mike's disappointment.

While out on an errand for his mom, Mike encounters a classmate, Amber Alley, who is a loner and bit weird. Athough Mike has no interest in her, the voice in his head tells him to talk to her. Mike goes into the flea market where he spies himself in a mirror. He looks fat and wonders how he got that way - at least that's what the voice in his head tells him. He decides to buy the mirror even though it will cost him all the money he has in his wallet.

The first day of grade 10, Mike's homeroom teacher, Mr. Clayton introduces a new student, Valerie Braylock. Mike thinks she's beautiful and discovers that she is a ballet dancer. He tells Tamio that he is in love with Valerie.  When he asks Valerie out a few days later and she refuses, Mike thinks she doesn't want to go out with him because he's fat. Later on he sees Valerie in the hallway talking with Tamio leading Mike to believe that Tamio has gone behind his back and that he and Valerie are a couple. Mike's day only gets worse when he arrives home and his father announces that he is leaving the family for a younger woman whom he met at the gym. This leaves Mike completely unmoored  - "My dad's gone...my mom's a wreck."

The voice inside his head convinces him that his parents don't matter, that he can be fit, he can be strong, that he can control the chaos."Strong body, strong mind, strong enough to master the chaos." So Mike begins restricting his food intake; he skips breakfast and lunch. He meets up with Amber who seems to have a wealth of knowledge about food. Mike goes with Amber to the grocery store to learn about different foods. When he asks her where she gets her information from she tells him that it comes from her best friend "Anna". Mike quickly moves from not just restricting his calories but also begins to exercise, running, doing sit-ups and pushups. Since he's often left alone at home, he begins eating what he wants when he wants.

By October, Mike's mom notices that he has lost weight but he refuses to be drawn into a discussion about his weight. His mother begins making dinners again but Mike finds he simply cannot eat. Distraught that he has to eat dinner, he calls Amber who provides him with ways to lie to his mother about what he's eating. Mike's mom gradually starts to pull herself together- she begins doing the laundry and making meals again as well as seeing a therapist. But as she begins to heal, she notices that Mike is unwell, withdrawn, unhappy and that he's lost a significant amount of weight. She also recognizes that he is wearing lots of bulky clothing and seems to be complaining of the cold.

At this point several people attempt to intervene in Mike's life. One of them is his friend Tamio who has never stopped begin Mike's friend and who is genuinely concerned for him. He confronts Mike about how he looks, showing him a picture of a haggard, skinny man. But Mike gives Tamio the brush-off. His mother's concern leads her  to take him to her doctor but the doctor doesn't seem concerned. Even his physics teacher, Mr. Clayton expresses his concern to Mike.

The turning point comes when Amber is hospitalized for an irregular heartbeat and other problems. By this time Mike has lost so much weight that he is unable to concentrate, has little energy, is cold all the time and blacks out at home. His mother forces him into hospital to be treated.  He will not be released until he has regained 90 per cent of his body weight. To achieve this goal, Mike is not only treated physically but he also sees a therapist. It is the beginning of a long journey back to wellness.

Discussion

A Trick Of The Light explores the issue of anorexia in boys, something that teen novels rarely do. Author Lois Metzger excels at capturing the typical thought processes an anorexic experiences. Much of the cognitive distortion comes about as a result of starvation and that is why the first approach is to have the person eat. Food is the anorexic's medicine. As the person with anorexia begins to regain weight, the persistent thoughts about food and distorted views of themselves can be addressed.

A perfect example of the distorted thinking that Mike is experiencing is given when the tiny voice inside Mike states "I think parents generally do their children more harm than good, and Mike's parents are no exception. They don't seem to care about him." And it is this voice, the anorexia, that narrates the story until almost the very end of the novel when Mike begins to recover. Metzger is not the first author to utilize this approach for a novel on eating disorders, but she does an excellent job.

Like Mike, many teens with an eating disorder are high achievers, and they may also be perfectionists. The often think they are ugly, stupid and unworthy. Anorexia is a way to gain control in their lives, when things seem to have gotten out of hand. In Mike's situation, the family break-up along with his mother's distress were the triggers for his need for control. He was left to fend for himself emotionally and physically at a time when his home life was unraveling. Without the support he needed as a young teen, his attempt to bring some sort of order into his life, led to disordered eating.

In what seems to be a paradox, the best way to treat an anorexic is to completely control almost everything about their eating, deciding what they eat, to portion size, and how much they eat. They must be treated like toddlers until they are able to relearn how to eat properly. The therapist and her explanations about what the eating disorder had done to Mike were realistically portrayed in A Trick of the Light. She was able to show Mike how the eating disorder overtook his life so that the only thing that remained was the eating disorder. Very little was left of him so to regain his health he had to reclaim himself.

Author Lois Metzger includes an Author's Note at the back of the novel in which she describes reading an article about a boy with an eating disorder. She managed to talk to that boy and his doctor and family as well as other families of anorexics in order to better understand this deadly illness. It took Metzger ten years to write this novel. In the process she has incorporated a great amount of information into her novel that will definitely be of help to parents, siblings and friends of those who are suffering from anorexia. This information will help them understand the lengths an anorexic will go to hide their illness and perhaps ways to help them. The author also provides a short list of resources in her note. One resource that can be helpful is James Lock and Daniel Le Grange's Help Your Teenager Beat an Eating Disorder. 

A Trick of the Light exposes anorexia for the difficult and dangerous mental health issue that it truly is. 

Book Details:
A Trick Of The Light by Lois Metzger
New York: Baltzer and Bray    2013
196 pp.

Tyranny by Lesley Fairfield

Tyranny is a graphic novel by artist Lesley Fairfield which explores the struggle of a young woman as she develops an eating disorder. We follow Anna as she enters puberty and begins to feel she is too fat because of the changes her body is experiencing. Her dreams and excitement over the potential of her young life begin to fade as she is consumed by a fear of eating and becoming fat.Anna states

"I felt trapped inside my new body. My imagination worked overtime, and before long, I was tormented and miserable! I was desperate to have my younger body back."

So Anna decides to diet and lose weight. which she does remarkably well. But she can never be quite thin enough. Food is her enemy that will make her fat and ugly. Anna begins to spiral faster and faster into behaviours that are harmful. She weighs herself several times a day, and calorie count, and finds that she is no longer able to eat at all. Soon she becomes too sick to attend high school, drops out and gets her own apartment when her relationship with her parents breaks down. At first things seem to be fine but Anna's eating disorder gets worse. She has no energy to keep a job and becomes physically ill. She ends up in hospital and under the care of a psychiatrist.

Eventually she gets another job and meets some new friends one of which she becomes close to. That girl also has an eating disorder. However, when a tragic event occurs, Anna realizes that she can no longer cope on her own and that she wants her life back. Anna decides she wants to live. She goes into treatment and discovers that she can deal with Tyranny. She learns to claim her thoughts, and to discover who she really is! She begins to fight for her life and for who she really is.

Tyranny is her alter ego, the fear behind her eating disorder, the demon that pushes her to stop eating. Anna learns to confront Tyranny, control her and ultimately banish her. Her life no longer belongs to fear and to Tyranny.

This book is a beautiful concept about a terrible illness, written by a woman who has struggled with an eating disorder for thirty years. Lesley Fairfield's unique illustrations aptly show the dysmorphia that Anna has. This distortion is also reflected in the image of Tyranny.

Eating disorders are the bane of many young women today given the cultural climate of perfection presented in advertising and entertainment. It was my children who have made me realize just how desensitized we can be to this. Every ad showing a woman's body is that of apparent perfection but is in reality a huge distortion of what women actually look like. It is not only models that are part of this myth but also any actress or performer who allows their image to be photoshopped.

This book is a must for all young adult collections.

Book Details:
Tyranny by Lesley Fairfield
Toronto: Tundra Books 2009
114 pp.