oscala

Original review, February 2011: Warning: spoilers abound below the fold. On the one hand...good writing. On the other hand...good grief, what an unsympathetic narrator. Her turning point is a bit hard to take, since she pretty much goes from "omg I need to be popular RIGHT NOW, GOD, I can't believe that my mother's dating this totally uncool guy, like, EW, if you're not COOL and POPULAR and THIN then life is just not worth LIVING" to "popularity is overrated. So is thinness. I'd much rather be happy and healthy, and oh, hey, of course my mother's boyfriend is absolutely perfect for her! I couldn't be happier that they're together!" with... pretty much nothing in between. Well, except an eating disorder. Sigh. I could carry on about the book—and the unrealistic situations—and the flawed background—and the reeeealllly unrealistic ED unit—but I think I'll leave it there. About the only thing that I really liked about the character was that she didn't get the boy in the end, which I think tells you how I felt about her. All stars for this book are based on writing, not characterization. ETA, March 2015: Didn't improve upon rereading, unfortunately. I was hoping that I'd like Wrenn better, but no luck. (I did, however, wonder whether the name 'Wrenn Scott' was meant to be a play on 'L'Wren Scott', though I don't know why it would be.) She just seemed really inconsistent and immature (not to mention shallow) most of the time, and while the writing's okay it's...a first book. (I'd probably still read something else by Brescia, for what it's worth, but I suspect my standards have changed in the last four years.) I had bigger problem's with Wrenn's treatment this time around, too. First just the timeline, and the amount of space it's allotted—Wren has three months and 250 pages in which to get sick, and then two months and 50 pages in which to recover. (Irritation point for me—too many ED books focus so heavily on the illness and skim over any recovery.) It's also just...not so realistic? They police each other at meals; they're allowed all kinds of unsupervised time offsite; there's no issue (and no stress!) about visitors bringing outside food in. Really just wanted everything and everyone to be better developed. My favourite thing is still the end.

2022-11-14 18:15