"EVERY DAY, MEAL BY MEAL, MILLIONS OF PEOPLE SUFFER FROM EATING DISORDERS. I AM ONE OF THEM."
" I FIRST BECAME AWARE OF FOOD WHEN I WAS SIX YEARS OLD. I WOULD HOARD CANDY IN MY SOCK DRAWER. I ONLY SHOWED SPECIAL PEOPLE MY HIDDEN TREASURE. I NEVER TOUCHED ANY OF IT. IT WAS SACRED."
--Nadia Shivack
Throughout Nadia's childhood to her adulthood she fought with her eating disorder, which resulted in a lifelong struggle, something she'd forever have to work at.
At the age of fourteen Nadia Shivack met ED, her eating disorder. At times ED was an alien inside Nadia's body while other times he was like a lover, but he always tended to be dangerous and destructive. Nadia as a young teen felt isolated and alone compared to everyone else in her family. Being the middle child of three girls Nadia was always self-conscious of herself and ashamed of herself, not making her family proud of her, especially her father. Nadia's eating disorder began when she began to swim competitively in school. Since the coach favored the slender and attractive girls Nadia began to restrict her food, she made up for it with wild binge eating. She would skip meals and make up for them later, starving in the cafeteria at school. As ED began to take over Nadia she began to loose her personality and life to him, she quit swimming and never laughed again.
"I MUST ACCEPT MY PAST, NOT DENY IT, NOT DISCARD IT AND LEARN TO FORGIVE MYSELF."
Nadia's novel is her personal autobiography of ED and how he controlled and fought against her. This short narrative could be read as a series of diary entries and viewed similarly to a comic, although it definitely is not one! This novel could not only relate to elementary students as young as sixth graders, primarily young girls, to as old as college students. All girls regardless of age tend to have negative views about themselves and admire and favor models and their bodies.
www.kidshealth.org/parent/emotions/feelings/eating_disorders.html --This site identifies how eating disorders are increasing among young kids and teens, especially women. This site can help parents understand how an eating disorder can affect their child.
*Great Graphic Novels for Teens, 2008 Nominations.
4 comments:
One thing our teacher pointed out to me was to add links to the things mentioned in the book/review. you should probably add a link about eating disorders.I don't know if a book is supposed to give away the ending, but since you told me that Nadia gets help and turns out fine, I dont know if I need to read the book, I think i know the ending. You could have left out the ending, but I can't tell. I took off the ending when I reviewed "A Long Way Gone" because of Tom's suggestion. Just an idea.
I especially like your thrown in quotations. It serves well as a hook, too.
I also like your description of how she meets her eating disorder like another person/personality that sometimes is an alien and sometimes a lover, but eventually it takes control over her.
One little tiny missing comma confused me, though. In your sentence "At the age of fourteen years old Nadia Shivack met ED her eating disorder" I need one between ED and her eating disorder. I needed quite awhile to find out who the heck ED is. Also, I think "years old" is redundant in the same sentence.
I suggest to break up your review into more paragraphs and to give the position of your second quotation another thought.
This is definitely something all young women should be aware of and
I think your review of the book tells one just enough. I had to
think for a minute or two why she
refereed to her disorder as ED.
I liked how you summarized the book.
Mary
Amanda, I thought your hook of quotes from the book was great. I think that everyone at some point in their lives has had issues about self esteem and their body, which would make me want to read this with my teenage students. I really enjoyed your summary, and was surprised to find out it was a graphic novel. As I was reading your summary I thought it was a book similar to Cut, which is a teen's perspective on cutting. However, when I got to the end of your review and saw that it was a graphic novel, I was happy to see that so much content was conveyed in a graphic novel. Sometimes I get concerned that graphic novels do not convey as much information as a novel does. But your review proved me wrong and I appreciate that because I need to be reminded that graphic novels are not just pictures, but they are stories that use intense illustrations to express them.
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