pickTeenage Elvira has an unhealthy obsession with her widowed father, a penchant for gothic literature, an indifference to her younger sister's night-fears of ghostly cats and whispering witches, disdain for everybody else, an eating disorder, and darkening fantasies about dispatching her father's new girlfriend.
Elvira's an unreliable first-person narrator, and gradually Rendell peels away the layers of delusion to reveal... 🖤
CWs in comments.
#SummerSouls
I think a tasty bagel sandwich with smoked salmon & caper-dill cream cheese with honey-mint lemonade shared with a friend outside in a tiny city garden counts as a #Picnic 🧺🍋🌱🍯🐝💛
That scene in the tagged book inspired me several years ago for my virtual foodie book club.
pickWhen I was ten years old my then fifteen-year-old cousin was admitted to a lock-down facility for non-compliant youth because she would not treat her type 1 diabetes and seemed to be literally wasting away. I have no idea if her experience was anything like Jake‘s, but his story painfully illustrates how lonely and difficult that healing process must have been. I‘m grateful for this look into the psyche of someone living with anorexia nervosa.
pickJohn Schu‘s YA novel told in verse form is an incredibly moving book based on his own experiences of having an eating disorder. I felt desperately sympathetic to the vulnerable Jake whose relationship with his grandmother is clearly very important to him but more could have been made of his relationship with his parents, which is much too lightly sketched and should have been explored given his mum‘s anxiety issues seem to feed into Jake‘s.
bailedI made it just past 100 pages and the thought of 200 more pages of ridiculous characterization just made my heart sink. Amber and Tyler have been besties since they were 14. Tyler has harboured more romantic feelings for Amber. A thing happens which causes Amber to take him at gunpoint to a remote cabin. Sexual assault is a serious topic…and so is Amber‘s eating disorder, but the whole thing reads like something on Wattpad. Blech.
I'm a little late (it's already Friday🙃) but here it's my list.. thanks again to @BeeCurious for the tag and @dabbe for the game 💚 #TLT
In no particular order
📚How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
📚The Giver by Lois Lowry
📚Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
(Special mention to the classics: Little Women, Jane Eyre and Anne of Green Gables)
pickA raw, honest, and emotional novel in verse that ultimately feels like a triumph while shedding light on a painful journey towards self-acceptance.
Sometimes, it's only through books that we (kids) can find this.
Take care of your heart! 💗
Do what brings you joy! 💖
