Body Image and Self-Perception Month Has Ended!

Today is the last day of Body Image and Self-Perception Month - and I believe this is the last post for the month! That's it! Finished!

Once you've read this, if you think you may have missed out on some posts, be sure to check out the BI&SP Month Schedule, which links directly to each of them.

I have a lot of thank yous to give, but before I do, I want to say how awesome it has been hosting this month. Not only have I read some amazing novels and discovered some new authors, but it's helped me. It turns out, although I knew my self-esteem wasn't brilliant, it wasn't as good as I thought it was either. But reading these books, reading the author interviews and guest posts, and reading the discussions we've all been having, I've come to like the way I look a whole lot more than I originally did. You have no idea how much better I now feel about myself. And I sincerely hope it's helped some of the people who have been following the month in some way too.

Now the thank you's! I want to thank everyone who got involved! I have to say I was, and still am, completely overwhelmed by the number of bloggers who loved the idea of BI&SP Month, and wanted to take part on their own blogs. When I opened it up to other bloggers, I thought I might get two or three other people to join in if I was lucky. I never expected to end up with 11! I am just completely over the moon that so many people wanted to take part, and I am so grateful to all of you wonderful people. These great people are:

Christina of Reading Extensively, Rebecca of Everything To Do With Books, Julianne of This Fleeting Dream, Molly of A Dazzling Distraction, Caroline of Portrait of a Woman, Sasha of The Sweet Bonjour, Carina of Reading Through Life, Callista of SMS Book Reviews, Jami of YA Addict, Michelle of Fluttering Butterflies, and Ashley of Books from Bleh to Basically Amazing.

You are all brilliant people, and I thank you for the work you all put into making BI&SP Month as brilliant as it has been! I have to admit that I didn't know of some of your blogs before hand, but now I will definitely be following you all! :) Thanks for your enthusiasm!

There are also a whole group of authors I have to thank, too. Thank you to the wonderful authors who allowed us bloggers to interview you, provided guest posts, and wrote something for today's You're Not Alone posts. So thanks goes to Jan Blazanin, Sydney Salter, Mary Hogan, Simmone Howell, Simone Elkeles, Laurie Halse Anderson, Sarah Darer Littman, Allen Zadoff, Deborah Lytton, A.M. Vrettos, Suzanne Supplee, Liz Rettig, and K.L. Going. I am so thrilled that so many of you took time out of your busy schedules to contribute to this month. Thank you for being a part of this month because you wanted to. I can't tell you just how awesome that is! And I'm grateful to those who were talking about books that were years old, when you all probably have current/soon-to-be-released novels to promote. I am sincerely thankful.

To all the authors who helped me out when I was in a bind and provided me with review copies so that there COULD be a BI&SP Month - at least on my blog - you are just amazing! Thank you so much! Again, these books aren't the latest ones released, so I'm so grateful for you to send me copies! Thanks also goes to book publishers Bloomsbury, Random House and Simon & Schuster for sending me backlisted review copies as well. I really appreciate it!

Thank you to Rhys of Thirst for Fiction and Luisa of Chicklish for writing guest posts! They were much appreciated! And extra thanks to Luisa for support, encouragement, enthusiasm, and general cheer leading for the month! I really appreciate it, thank you!

Finally, thank you to the readers! To everyone who read the posts for the month, whether you commented or lurked, who retweeted about various posts, and generally supported it, thank you! I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did!

I'll finish by saying I hope the month had some impact on you all, no matter how small. whether it's to how you view yourself, or discovering a book/author you'd like to give a go, or by enjoying the discussions or being touched by the author's/blogger's honesty today. If so, then it's all the hard work has been worth it.

If you've got a few minutes spare, I'd be really grateful if you could fill in this feeback form, to tell me what you thought of the month. Thank you.

Continue reading Body Image and Self-Perception Month Has Ended!

Further Reading

If you would like to read more books on body image and self-perception, the following may be something you'd be interested in reading. Not all is fiction, some are memoirs.

Nothing by Robin Friedman - The most popular guy at his high school, 17-year-old Parker Rabinowitz is wealthy, smart, and drop-dead handsome. He's a sure thing for HYP (Harvard, Yale, or Princeton) according to his college consultant, whom Parker has worked with since he was 14. Parker's got just one problem: he's bulimic. Nothing is presented in two distinct first-person voices - those of Parker and his 14-year-old sister, Danielle. Parker tells his side of the story in present-tense narrative, which becomes progressively more stripped down as he's consumed by the disorder.Danielle tells her side of the story in free verse. Danielle, who is barely even acknowledged by their achievement-obsessed parents, is known in school as 'Parker's sister'. Despite all this, Danielle loves her brother. And she's the only one who seems to notice what's happening behind Parker's perfect-seeming exterior, as he disappears into a world of deception and desperation. Complex and realistic, this novel's ultimate message is one of hope. From Amazon UK

Huge by Sasha Paley - Sixteen-year-olds Wilhelmina and April meet at Wellness Springs, a posh fat camp in California. Wil is not happy to be there - her parents own a chain of gyms and see their overweight daughter as a PR disaster - so she plans not to lose a pound all summer in order to get back at them. April, on the other hand, can't believe her luck. She's been saving for a whole year to come to Wellness Springs after she saw it featured in Teen Vogue. She can't wait to work off her excess weight, and then bring on the guys! Assigned to be room mates and work-out partners, the girls hate each other from the start. And things get worse when they both go after the same guy. Can Wil make it through the summer, and finally be accepted by her parents? Will April ever find someone willing to be a real boyfriend, even though she may never be skinny? A funny and poignant novel about friendship and self-acceptance. From Amazon UK

Secrets of Truth and Beauty by Megan Frazer - And the first runner up is...

When Dara Cohen was little, she was a bright, shiny star. She was the cutest seven-year-old who ever sang Ella Fitzgerald, and it was no wonder she was crowned Little Miss Maine.

That was then. Now Dara's seventeen and she's not so little anymore. So not little, that when her classmates find out about her illustrious resume, their jaws drop. That's just one of her many problems. Another is that her control-freak mom won’t get off her case about anything. Yet the one that hurts the most is the family secret: Dara has an older sister her parents tried to erase from their lives.

When a disastrously misinterpreted English project lands her in the counselor’s office--and her parents pull her out of school to save face--Dara realizes she has a decision to make. She can keep following the rules and being misunderstood, or she can finally reach out to the sister she’s never met--a sister who lives on a collective goat farm in Massachusetts. Dara chooses B. What follows is a summer of revelations, some heartbreaking, some joyous; of friendship, romance, a local beauty pageant; and choices. And as autumn approaches, Dara finds she may have to let go of everything she's taken for granted in order to figure out who she really is, and what family really means. From Amazon US

Fat Cat by Robin Brande - You are what you eat....

Cat smart, sassy, and funny—but thin, she’s not. Until her class science project. That’s when she winds up doing an experiment—on herself. Before she knows it, Cat is living—and eating—like the hominids, our earliest human ancestors. True, no chips or TV is a bummer and no car is a pain, but healthful eating and walking everywhere do have their benefits.

As the pounds drop off, the guys pile on. All this newfound male attention is enough to drive a girl crazy! If only she weren’t too busy hating Matt McKinney to notice....

This funny and thoughtful novel explores how girls feel about their bodies, and the ways they can best take care of their most precious resource: themselves. From Amazon US

Accidents of Nature by Harriet McBryde Johnson - Seventeen-year-old Jean has cerebral palsy and gets around in a wheelchair, but she's always believed she's just the same as everyone else. She goes to normal school and has normal friends. She's never really known another disabled person before she arrives at Camp Courage. But there Jean meets Sara, who welcomes her to 'Crip Camp' and nicknames her Spazzo. Sara has radical theories about how people fit into society. She's full of rage and revolution against pitying insults and the lack of respect for people with disabilities. As Jean joins a community unlike any she has ever imagined, she comes to question her old beliefs and look at the world in a new light. The camp session is only ten days long, but that may be all it takes to change a life forever. From Amazon UK

Does My Bum Look Big In This Ad? by Lisa Cox - Ever wondered why you don’t look like the people in magazine ads?

Heaps of books look at how popular culture (like the media) affect the way you feel about yourself. Unfortunately, they’re mostly written about young people, not for young people… until now!

Lisa Cox takes a behind the scenes look at the media industry: Showing you how to critically and independently evaluate what you see, hear or read in popular culture.

You’ll also learn how to develop and maintain a positive body image, now and in the future, as you navigate your way through the media maze.
From MuseInTheMirror.com

Thin by Grace Bowman - Bright, popular, pretty and successful, Grace Bowman had the world at her feet. So what drove her to starve herself nearly to death at the age of 18? And what, more importantly, made her stop? A grippingly honest account of life with anorexia nervosa, A Shape of My Own is Grace's hearbreaking, shocking and, finally, inspirational memoir. An extraordinary story, it is also a common one - is there a woman in the western world who has a normal relationship with food? A compulsive read, essential for anyone hoping to understand more about eating disorders and overcoming addiction. From Amazon UK

Wasted by Marya Hornbacher - A 'retired career anorexic' examines herself and her, and our, culture in a masterpiece of confessional literature. At the age of four Marya Hornbacher looked in a mirror and decided she was fat. At nine, she was bulimic. At twelve, she was anorexic. By the time she was eighteen, she'd been hospitalized five times, once in the loony bin. Her doctors and her parents had given up on her; they were watching her die. But Marya decided to live. Four years on, now 22, here is her harrowing tale, powerfully told in a virtuoso mix of memoir, cultural criticism and psychological examination. Here is the amazingly articulate fury of a clever woman made stupid by her culture, who threw away her teenage years in a continuous cycle of bingeing and vomiting or just plain starvation. The first book to explore, from the inside, the intimate relationship between eating disorders and 1990s culture's historically unprecedented obsession with body, diet and gender; not a testimony to a miracle cure, but the story of one woman's travels to the darker side of reality, and her decision to find her way back, on her own terms. From Amazon UK

Good Girls Do Swallow by Rachael Oakes-Ash - Between the ages of 20 and 30, Rachael Oakes-Ash lost 60kg and gained 76kg on a rollercoaster of body image problems and food obsession. She went through anorexia, bulimia, bulimarexia, gym obsession, strict dieting and binge eating before finally she figured out how to stop torturing herself and hating her body. This is the black and funny story of her downfall and recovery. Rachael might have taken things further than many of us, but this is a story every woman can relate to. In Australia, 75 per cent of women think they are too fat and 95 per cent of women have dieted (even though dieting is the best way to put on weight). You might not have rescued food from the bin in a moment of binge-madness but if you've ever felt lousy and reached for a chocolate biscuit for comfort this book is for you. "What the diet promised, I got," writes Rachael. "I got the body that can wear the clothes. I got the job I love, I got the man I want. But I only got it for keeps when I stopped dieting. "Good Girls Do Swallow" shows how she did it. And how you can, too. From Amazon U

Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self by Lori Gottlieb - Based on diaries written in 1978, when she was eleven years old, the author offers a chronicle of her battle with anorexia and the pressures from family, peers, and society that led her to starve herself. From Amazon UK

Purge: Rehab Diaries: Life in an Easting Disorders Treatment Centre by Nicole Johns - With a Girl Interrupted feel, this memoir is beautifully crafted and will appeal to many readers who enjoy the 'misery-memoir' genre. In this engaging, raw memoir, Nicole Johns documents her battle with an eating disorder. Focusing primarily on her three months in a treatment facility, Johns translates her experience directly to the page. Her prose is lucid, and she seamlessly switches tenses and moves through time as she unearths several important themes: body image and sexuality, sexual abuse and relationships, and the struggle to piece together one's path in life.While other books dealing with this theme may sugar coat the harsh realities of living with an eating disorder, "Purge" does not hold back. Johns' presents an honest, detailed account of her experience with treatment, avoiding the happily-ever-after while still offering hope to the millions struggling with these devastating disorders. "Purge" sends a message to those who are fighting an uphill battle with an eating disorder: though the road may be rough, ultimately there is hope. From Amazon UK

Hungry: Lessons Learned on the Journey from Fat to Thin by Allen Zadoff - This work provides weight loss advice and inspiration from the delicious, calorific yet uncomfortably large life experiences of a formerly fat man. With an appetite both for life and for binge eating, hungry man Allen Zadoff spent years reasoning that a big, healthy man should have a big, healthy appetite and that his rapidly increasing girth was no more than a regular guy thing. He even took pride in his eating prowess, polishing off boxes of chocolates with aplomb and devouring enough dim sum to feed a wedding party. After all, he rationalized, real men don't have eating disorders - they have healthy appetites. By the age of 28, Zadoff's waistline had swelled to size 54, his shirts to 4XL. What had started as a little weight problem had become a serious issue on the way to destroying his life. He began to suspect that thinness would forever elude him, even as he searched desperately for a way to lose the weight that stood stubbornly in the way of his happiness. Then food stopped working for him - instead of bringing momentary peace, it was increasingly carrying him to new depths of despair. It was then Zadoff realized that no amount of willpower and no known diet could break his addiction to food. He needed to find a new way of living, a set of tools for staying 'on the wagon' that would carry him into thin and beyond. He began to focus less on what he ate, and began instead to focus on the physical and emotional underpinnings of what he came to understand as a disease. The pounds melted away and so began the adventure of a lifetime. As laugh-out-loud funny as it is inspirational, Hungry follows Zadoff's incredible journey - what he thought he knew about life, weight and happiness on his way up the scale, and more importantly, everything he learned now that he's found his way back down. Blending his personal story with surprising but practical strategies for weight loss success, Zadoff has created a unique book that will delight and inform men and women alike. From Amazon US

If you know of any others, please recommend them and I'll add them to the list.

Continue reading Further Reading

You're Not Alone (4)

Angela Morrison - YA author of Sing Me to Sleep:

I've got a couple of major insecurities. The first one is I'm hideous in pictures--the most unphotogenic person I know . When my first novel, TAKEN BY STORM, was being published, we lived in Switzerland. I freaked when my editor said they needed an author's photo. No "Glamor Shots" at the corner mall like they have here in the States. I went on Razorbill's website and all there authors were young and beautiful--glam to the extreme. What was I going to do? My daughter is a great photographer, so we went down to the lake and she took tons and tons of pictures. Most of them turned out like this:


Click image for a larger view.
I did manage to keep my eyes open and mouth closed in a couple of them. Then I discovered the wonders of iPhoto's retouch tools. All the sudden, I'm glam, too. But it so isn't real.

I gave my other deep, dark shame to the heroine in my debut novel, TAKEN BY STORM. Remember how awkward you felt when you were twelve to fourteen and started to develop? I'm still waiting for that to happen. Bring on the awkwardness. The bosom fairy lost my address and never caught up with me.

In high school it was so embarrassing. I never advanced beyond a training bra. There is an incident in TAKEN BY STORM where Leesie gets groped on the bus. That came right out of my experience. (Except there was no tall, dark, and wounded new kid to stand up for me.) I just cringed into myself and never said anything about it to anyone. I couldn't admit that it had happened enough to talk about it.

And, this is crazy, and stupid and I should not have felt like this but I did, the most humiliating thing about being violated like that was that I had nothing to grab. I felt exposed. My secret ripped away. (Not that it wasn't obvious to everyone who looked at me.)

I couldn't even let Leesie report the fictional jerk I created to grope her. She does discuss it with Michael and her online soul-mate, Kim. More than I allowed myself. But I couldn't get Leesie into that principal's office--couldn't let her mom find out.

And that is so wrong. We girls (and guys, too) need to stand up for ourselves. Any unwanted contact is harassment. Serious stuff. That kind of abuse makes wounds that need salve to heal. I know my daughter--and all my readers out there who I think of as daughters--are stronger than I was. She'd report it. You'd report it. And get help dealing with the emotional trauma that accompanies any abuse. And these days, you face so much worse than what I did. Protect yourselves. Be smart. Avoid being alone on dates. Don't let anyone pressure you into doing anything you don't want to do.

Love and romance is a wonderful thing, but not if we are destroyed by it. Or destroy someone else. Intimacy isn't a free for all. It's serious, powerful stuff. Handle with care.

All my love,

Angela

Continue reading You're Not Alone (4)

You're Not Alone (3)

Julianne of This Fleeting Dream:

When I was at school, I was bullied for: being tall, being skinny, being pale and refusing to fake tan, having big feet (and therefore unfashionable shoes), having a big nose, having a ‘posh’ accent (because I didn’t mysteriously develop a Mockney accent in Year 8), having unfortunately oily hair, having a belly button that looks like it’s been stretched, having small boobs, not having my ears pierced, wearing glasses, wearing braces, not wearing make-up and not having had a boyfriend. At one point or another, I obsessed over each of these things, especially the last, because it was the logical, unavoidable, and in my mind eternal consequence of all the previous items.

I hardly ever think about these things now. I wear contact lenses, finished with the braces, and learned that conditioner hates my hair, but I don’t look fundamentally different. All that’s changed is my mindset. It’s hard to feel great about the shape you have through genetic coincidence when for years and years you believed it made you ugly. But it can be done. You just have to stop listening. In most situations in life, it’s a good idea to listen to other people, take expert advice, and be open minded. But when it comes to the physical things about you that you cannot change, or deep down, aren’t really that fussed about changing, close that mind! Bar entry to your brain! Ignore, ignore, ignore, ignore, ignore it. It’s actually easier in the long run to stop listening to that rubbish. It’s more logical to find your own way, to be happy because of who you are and the things you do because you can control all of that. Remember that you will never ever maintain proximity to the cultural ideal for more than a couple of years because you will get old. It is not worth bothering with because you cannot possibly hold onto it. It is just a lie, one that could destroy you if you pursue it. So don’t buy magazines full of pictures of people that you will never look like. Stop worrying about getting a romantic partner. Do stuff instead! Read books, play instruments, learn things, dress up in clothes you think are fun. Clothes and make-up are not the enemy if you’re trying to express yourself, rather than achieve that impossible ideal. Try wearing things that actually emphasize your so-called flaws. I wear vertical striped skinny trousers which I am sure make me look more like a stick but they make me feel like awesome incarnate so who cares?

If you see someone and think they don’t care enough about their looks, that they have bad taste, or wear colours that don’t suit them – mind your own business! They might be too busy curing cancer or trying to save the rhinos or doing something else amazing to be bothered about meeting your beauty standards. Be your own kind of beautiful, and always be kind to others.

Continue reading You're Not Alone (3)

You're Not Alone (2)

Sarah Darer Littman - YA author of Purge.

Most girls anticipate the arrival of their breasts with Judy Blumesque fervor. (“I must, I must, I must increase my bust.”) I tried to ignore mine. I wore the same bra, a 34A, all through high school. Sported flannel shirts and other camouflage clothes to conceal the suggestion of a chest, and developed a stoop shouldered posture to aid in this endeavor.

My grandmother was appalled. “Wings back, chest out!” was probably her most uttered admonition to me during my high school years. What she didn’t understand was that the last thing in the world I wanted to do was walk around with my chest out. It frightened me. Well, not it per se, but the attention that they seemed to attract whenever they were unveiled. Grandma was so determined to rectify my slumping posture that she would make me walk the length of our back deck with a book balanced on my head. Kicking it old school. What she didn’t know was that as soon as I exited the front door, I reverted to my slumping, chest-concealing ways.

I ignored my breasts so much I didn’t even realize they’d grown. My first semester of college, they kept falling out of my ancient bra when I ran for the bus. When I went home for Thanksgiving, I told my mom and we went to Lord and Taylor. The bra fitter told me I was no longer a 34A, I was actually a 34C. Great. Even more to hide.

When I was in my 30’s, I had kids. Finally, my breasts had a raison d’etre. I loved breastfeeding – the closeness with my babies, the knowledge that I was giving them the best nutrition possible. But instead of shrinking, as many women’s do after nursing children, mine got even bigger. WTF?! If my shoulders got any more rounded, I’d look like Quasimodo.

Out of all my body parts, I’m still the most insecure and self-conscious about my chest, but after years of therapy and with that je ne sais quois that’s come to me with middle age, I’ve learned to accept “the girls”. They still cause me frustration when I’m dress shopping or worse still, looking for swimwear. But I write in my basement, and at the bookstore where I work part-time I can wear skirts and tops, so I don’t wear that many dresses. And I found a great place that sells cute bikinis with supportive bra tops for well-endowed women. So if I’ve got them, why not, if not exactly flaunt them, at least not hide them? And definitely, definitely stop hating them. Because life’s too short to waste energy on that. I’d rather be writing.

Continue reading You're Not Alone (2)

You're Not Alone (1)

Just like the title says, you are not alone. Several authors and bloggers were kind enough to share with us some of their own insecurities. These are bloggers you follow, authors you admire. Real people you know of who suffer from their own low self-esteem or poor body image. It's not just in books and on TV. We know exactly how you feel.

This is the first post of a few posts that will be posted today. Some contributors wanted to say a bit more, so they will have their own posts. Keep an eye out for them.

I probably don't have to say this, but I will just to be on the safe side. It takes a lot to be open and honest about things like this. These people are being incredibily brave. Please treat them and their honesty with the respect they deserve. Thank you.

On any of the posts that follow, if you wish to share your own insecurites, please feel free to do so. However, there is no pressure to if you'd rather not.

Jo of Once Upon a Bookcase:

I have never had an eating disorder of any kind, but people assume I have, or do have, just by looking at me. I have a high metabolism, which means I am very skinny and have so much trouble putting weight on. I also have a poor excuse for a bust, and to top it off, I look a lot younger than I am. I'm also pretty shy and quiet, and never used to think much of myself. School used to be a nightmare. Shopping IS a nightmare; shopping for smart clothes for jobs involves me looking at the trendy school uniform pieces shops like New Look sell - and I'm 23. Around fifty per cent of the things I buy need altering, taking in or up. Reading the books I have for Body Image & Self-Perception Month, it's made me aware of my own self-esteem, and it's really not that great.

My self-esteem used to be a whole lot worse, though. I was bullied at school, and used to get so low. But then something switched inside me. I wasn't going to let these people make me feel so bad. So I'm not perfect, but what can I really do about it without taking drastic actions? Nothing. So I decided to stop worrying about it. I doubt I'll ever be completely happy with myself, but I've learned to accept that this is me, I'm not really that bad, and there are other qualities about myself that are far more important than how I look anyway. I've realised how lucky I am compared to some people. I'm not disfigured. I'm not disabled. Where I might not look amazing, there are those who are a lot worse off. Being me isn't really all that bad.

Rebecca of Everything To Do With Books:

Everybody feels insecure about some things, outwardly I can think of a number of things. I have bad skin. I'm constantly buying a lot of facial products just to see if I can achieve clear skin. At high school I got teased about having bad skin and so ever since then I've felt like I need to get rid of my pimples. A lot of people tell me that I'm short, they say it quite meanly so now I'm really sensitive when it comes to height.

I have insecurities inwardly too. I'm extremely shy to the point where I don't feel comfortable talking to people for the first time. Usually when I'm in a group of people I worry about what to say that by the time I think of something to say about the topic, everyone else has started talking about something else. These days I try not to let these things get the best of me though. Nobody is perfect and really, while I do have insecurities I do like who I am.

Suzanne Supplee - YA author of Artichoke's Heart:

Going for a run has a way of making me appreciate my body parts, even the ones I’m not particularly fond of. The next time you find yourself scrutinizing your least favorite body part, imagine getting through your day without it. Running up that big hill next to my house would be difficult without a butt.

Christina of Reading Extensively:

Recently I was looking through some old photographs of myself as a child and I remembered that I didn't feel ugly when I was a kid. I remember that I liked my hair even though I wished it was longer but other than that I was just fine with how I looked. It wasn't until I got a little older that I hated my bumpy nose, my chicken pox scars, and my frizzy hair. It was nice to be able to remember a time when I didn't look down on myself because of my appearance. By high school I felt really unattractive and fat even though I wasn't. While I think I could have styled my hair better (I didn't use hair products at all) and worn clothing that was more flattering, I was really hard on myself about my appearance during my teen years.

Now as a thirty-something adult I have slowly come to terms with my nose although I do avoid three way mirrors! I have also come to terms with my chicken pox scars now that I've had some surgery scars added to them. My hair that I once hated for being frizzy is now falling out. I have a kind of hereditary hair loss so these days I am just happy to have my hair for as long as I have it, frizz and all. I know that I will probably wear a wig someday which is hard to think about but hopefully I will find one with the kind of hair I always wanted as a teen :) I still struggle with my appearance and sometimes I don't like to look in the mirror. On really bad days I still catalog all my flaws. As a teen I listened to the negative comments of my classmates and I let that influence how I felt about myself. Time has definitely given me some perspective on my looks but I have a long way to go. My goal for myself is to be healthy and to quit seeing only the negatives. I know I will never be stick thin like my mom and my younger sister but God meant for me to be curvy and short and most days I'm okay with that.

Sydney Salter - YA author of My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters:

I didn’t like my nose in high school—and I blamed it for all kinds of things. Shyness, boyfriendlessness, the C I got in English… I moved on to college, fell in love, found my passion for writing, and learned that my nose, or any aspect of my appearance, has very little to do with my level of happiness, or success. All of that comes from the inside.

But I still hate seeing pictures of myself. I don’t check my hair, clothes, or even body size. I look at The Nose. As an author, I’m still getting used to having photos and videos of myself posted online. People snap photos at book events and Tweet them, add them to Facebook albums and blogs, totally oblivious to how my nose looks (or whether my eyes are closed, for that matter). They’re focused on the conversation and laughter we shared, not my silly nose issues. Again, it’s what comes from the inside that matters—but I still struggle with remembering that sometimes.

Jami of YA Addict:

I have always had issues with my weight. Growing up, I was always a little chunky. This didn’t start bothering me until I was in my early teens. I’d look at the models in clothing catalogs and notice how much skinnier they were than me. I became obsessed with my weight. I tried some pretty crazy things trying to lose weight. From the Hollywood juice diet, to slim fast, to only eating one meal a day, and eventually, I started trying to throw up my meals. I hate throwing up with a passion, so that didn’t last long. I did lose weight with some of my crazy antics, but I was never happy. I wouldn’t participate in many social events because of my weight. I would always tell myself, “Once I get to 120 pounds I will start wearing a bathing suit and hang out with everyone else at the beach”. I kept holding off on life. I didn’t feel like I was worthy enough to “live” because of my weight.

It was my boyfriend (who is now my husband) who got me to stop doing these things. He loved me for me, not the number on the scale. He taught me to love myself the way I am. I am a much happier person because of it. That is not to say I am never self-conscious about my weight. I still get nervous in public settings, especially when I am around a group of very skinny girls. After having two kids, I have some baby weight I am trying to lose. But this time, I am doing it the healthy way. I am trying to eat the right foods, but I am not punishing myself when I do have a brownie every now and then. Life is much too short to always skip dessert.

Continue reading You're Not Alone (1)

Purge Contest Winner

The Purge by Sarah Darer Littman contest is now closed! There were 27 entries, Randomizer.org has done it's thing, and I can now announce the winner is:

Llehn!
Congratulations! Your details have been emailed on to Sarah so she can email you your prize! Thank you to everyone who entered! Better luck next time!

Continue reading Purge Contest Winner

Review: Second Star to the Right by Deborah Hautzig

Second Star to the Right by Deborah Hautzig (review copy) - On the face of it, Leslie is a normal, healthy, well-adjusted fourteen-year-old girl. She goes to a good school, has a great friend in Cavett, and a mother who loves her to the moon and back. She should be happy, yet she’s not. She would be, she thinks, if only she were thinner. But “thinking thin” becomes a dangerous obsession and Leslie’s weight drops to five stone, threatening to destroy her and the whole fabric of her family life. Only by realizing that this condition is an illness – and one that has its roots in a deep problem – can Leslie hope to survive. From Amazon UK

Continue reading Review: Second Star to the Right by Deborah Hautzig

Discussion: What Type of Hero/ine do you Prefer?

Today's discussion comes with thanks to Moon Rat over at Editorial Ass for letting me borrow her question.

In YA fiction, what kind of hero/ine is better; one with a really positive self image or one with a flawed self-image?

One may promote self-confidence in teen readers, while the other may ("may" being the key word here) seem more realistic, more identifiable.

Teens, which do you prefer to read about? Which do you find more entertaining in a novel?

To the adults, the same questions, but also which would you prefer teens to read about - be them your children, your nieces or nephews, yours cousins, etc?

Does the author have the responsibility to send out positive messages about self-image, or more to entertain? Can an author do both - where the protagonist has a healthy self-image from the very beginning running throughout? I can't honestly think of a YA novel where the protag is happy with themselves from beginning to end.

Just questions to start a discussion, not condeming, criticising, or deeming anything impossible.

Continue reading Discussion: What Type of Hero/ine do you Prefer?

Guest Post from Sydney Salter: Mothers and Daughters

Today we have a guest post from Sydney Salter, YA author of My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters.

Mothers and Daughters

My Big Nose And Other Natural Disasters is about one teen’s obsession with her nose—only plastic surgery will save her face as well as solve other problems in her life, like her pathetic love-life. But it’s also about the way mothers pass body image issues down to their daughters.

It’s easy to blame the media for airbrushing models (did anyone see Lady Gaga’s lack of cellulite on the cover of Rolling Stone?). Or television shows and movies that cast only slender, beautiful actresses. Teens are smart, and see through those things. Few girls really believe that glasses and a ponytail make a beautiful character “unattractive.”

But most girls do absorb their mother’s habits. In my story, Jory’s mother constantly diets to fit in with her upper class friends—she’s never quite satisfied with her appearance. If her beautiful mother isn’t pretty enough, what does that say about Jory? Plus, Jory’s mother seems to value physical attractiveness above all else.

In real life, I’ve watched my own mother try all kinds of diets (yes, she actually did the Dinner For Breakfast Diet). But I’ve never seen her happy with her weight. Not at 180 pounds. Not at 120 pounds. And, yeah, that lack of self-assurance rubbed off on me a bit (nose issues). But now that I’m raising two daughters, I’m determined to break the cycle.

I never criticize another woman’s appearance, or my own. I eat healthy (most of the time), exercise, and live life fully—that means getting into a bathing suit despite the fact that my thighs look nothing like Lady Gaga’s do on that magazine cover. And I never say anything negative about my daughters’ appearance (my mother never criticized me either).

Every time we grimace at our reflection in the mirror, ask if we look fat in our clothes, or complain about a body part, we’re teaching our daughters to do the same. So, please, if you’ve got a bad habit—like trashing other girls when you gather with your friends—do everyone a favor and stop. There’s so much else in the world to focus on.

Thank you, Sydney, for such a brilliant guest post. What do you think about what Sydney has said? Do movies own insecurities effect their children?
Be sure to check out Sydney Salter's website, and read my review of My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters.

Continue reading Guest Post from Sydney Salter: Mothers and Daughters

Review: My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters by Sydney Salter

My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters by Sydney Salter (review copy) - It’s the end of junior year, and summer is about to begin. The Summer of Passion, to be exact, when Jory Michaels plans to explore all the possibilities of the future--and, with any luck, score a boyfriend in the process. But Jory has a problem. A big problem. A curvy, honking, bumpy, problem in the form of her Super Schnozz, the one thing standing between Jory and happiness. And now, with the Summer of Passion stretched before her like an open road, she's determined for Super Schnozz to disappear. Jory takes a job delivering wedding cakes to save up for a nose job at the end of the summer; she even keeps a book filled with magazine cutouts of perfect noses to show the doctor. But nothing is ever easy for accident-prone Jory--and before she knows it, her Summer of Passion falls apart faster than the delivery van she crashes. In her hilarious and heartbreaking debut novel, Sydney Salter delivers a story about broadening your horizons, accepting yourself, and finding love right under your nose. From Amazon US

This is such a brilliant book! I really loved it! Such a sweet novel! I really loved it!

Jory has two goals for the summer. Find her passion, and get a job so she can save her money for a nose job, so she can nab the gorgeous Tyler Briggs. Her passion goal is half-hearted, as that's what her friends are doing, but she is obsessed with the rest; nose jobs and Tyler - or any other cute guys who happen to be around at the time.

It's really quite sad how badly she thinks about her nose. She keeps a Nice Nose Notebook, where she keeps pictures of models with nice noses to show to the surgeon when she gets her nose job. Everything that goes wrong in her life, is down to her big nose. Her mother is constantly on a diet, and trying to get Jory to wear beauty enhancing make-up. It's just really sad.

But there is more to this book than just Jory's nose. There's friendship, family, and boy issues that go a lot deepers than a squabble and an unrequited crush. But they're all dealt with in such a brilliant way.

I don't know what else I can say about this book. So much goes on in it, and I don't want to spoil it. It really is a brilliant book, one that is right up there with my favourites! I absolutely loved it, and can't recommend it enough! I will definitely be checking out more of Sydney Salter's novels.

Thanks to Sydney for sending me a review copy.

Published: 6th April 2009
Publisher: Graphia Books
Buy on Amazon UK
Buy on Amazon US
Sydney Salter's Website

Continue reading Review: My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters by Sydney Salter

Guest Review: Sobibor by Jean Molla

Today we have a guest review of Sobibor by Jean Molla from Caroline of Portrait of a Woman. Thank you, Caroline!

Sobibor by Jean Molla

Summary from Amazon:
'I did it, so they'd stop me,' Emma said, when she was caught stealing biscuits from a supermarket. But, Emma is hiding behind her tough words and her waif-like body... Emma is sixteen and anorexic. Why does she do it? Is it her parents' in difference, the long family silences, the lies they tell each other? Emma wants to know. She wants to understand. Whenshe discovers an old notebook in her grandparents' house, disturbing secrets emerge that demand an answer.

~~~~~
Sobibor is one of those books that grips you from the very first sentence and never lets you go. You feel unable to take your eyes off the pages, nor hide what you are feeling by closing the book. The raw images and situations are laid in front of the reader’s eye for him/her to discover what he/she never dared think about and try to understand.

The book is divided by two plots. The first one sees Emma progressively destroy herself. She has been anorexic since the beginning of puberty where her body started to change into one of a woman. She is deeply disturbed and prefers isolating herself from all the others rather than change herself. The book begins when Emma is caught stealing in a supermarket. The manager of the shop reveals to be a nice man wanting to help rather than an accuser. The second plot is in the form of a journal written by French man Jacques Desroches during the Second World War where he joins the German forces in an extermination camp in Poland called Sobibor. The diary was found by Emma in her grandmother home after her death. Emma is haunted by that journal and the acts of cruelty described in it.

The description Emma makes of herself and of her body are incredibly powerful. I was deeply shocked and disturbed by how she perceived the changes in her body. She says that she is not the same person anymore, that she can’t bear to have curves. She says “to be in control”. She refuses to eat or stuffs herself and vomits. She is afraid to grow up and become a woman. Her story is heart-breaking and acts as a complete electroshock.

One of the strongest points of Sobibor is the intensity of the writing. May it be in the cold descriptions of the extermination of the Jewish people or in Emma’s description of her body and what she inflicts on herself.

I am disturbed by Emma’s parents who don’t react to their daughter’s illness and behaviour, but I come to realize that, sometimes, the ones closest to you don’t see you. They don’t see you for who you are but for what they think you are, not bothering with the specifics. It is also much easier to choose not to see things. On the contrary, Emma’s boyfriend Julien recognizes the first signs of the disease and tries to help. Emma’s raw emotions are described with such clarity that it is hard not to find it sick at times. But her illness isn’t something you can gloss over with beautiful and poetic descriptions. Jean Molla’s way of describing Emma’s state of mind are truly amazing.

I was very interested and touched by the character of the supermarket manager. His take on life, his job and all the people coming in his shop with their histories, their miseries and needs is fascinating.

The whole part of the journal is also fascinating. Collaboration is a taboo subject in France. Kids learn at school the importance of Resistance and that the French, under Charles de Gaulle, were among the winners of the war. Unfortunately, anti-semitic and superior race ideas did exist in France as well, and many actors in the French political scene weren’t against German ideas (though I am not saying they were for extermination camps either). This book shows how a despicable (there is no other word) human being justified his actions. The book is studied in schools and has indeed received many children/student awards in France.

The book is as much about anorexia and body image as the sense of history and transmitting one’s ideas. It is also about secrecy and choosing to see things and ignore others. In his postscript, Jean Molla says that there is no evident link between anorexia and the extermination camps except that sometimes, big stories intertwine with smaller ones to create another Story. He explains that “this book is an attempt to dispel those secrets” that keep building up in people’s lives, and the need to talk about them.

Published: 24th October 2005
Publisher: Aurora Metro Publications
Buy from Amazon UK
Buy from Amazon US

Continue reading Guest Review: Sobibor by Jean Molla

Guest Post from Suzanne Supplee: Rosie & Me

Today YA author Suzanne Supplee is here to talk about her her novel Artichoke's Heart, and how there's a bit of herself in the main character Rosie.

I just got back from a three-mile run. It’s hot out. And muggy. I stayed up too late last night(old friend in town), got up too early this morning (new book to work on). My left hamstring is so tight you could play a tune on it, and I have a very long list of things to do today. Post run, I did some push-ups, buttock tucks, arm weights, sit-ups, and stretches. No shower yet. Or make-up, obviously. I really could use a trip to the hairdresser, too. Let’s just say this would not be a great time to run into an old boyfriend or one of those phony Bluebird types.

What’s strange, however, is that this time of day—when I’m sweaty and smelly and red-faced—is when I feel the absolute best about myself. Something inside says You’re okay, you know that? You did that run. You climbed all those hills. You didn’t stop, not even when that pesky hamstring started up again.

It took me YEARS to figure this out, though, that I was one of those people who functioned better, felt happier, had more self-confidence when I exercised regularly. As a teenager, I exercised mostly out of vanity. In my twenties, I did it to lose the weight I’d gained in college. During my thirties, it was for post-partum reasons. Now, I do it because it makes me feel good. Is it the endorphins? The fresh air perhaps? I’m sure a doctor could explain it in greater detail than I care to hear.

Rosie, the main character in Artichoke’s Heart, struggles with binge eating. She has junk food stashed everywhere, and she is constantly preoccupied with her next meal. Portion control? Sure, Rosie’s plate looked normal, but only because she kept going back for seconds and thirds and then some. Her mother worried about her constantly. Her aunt harassed her daily. The Bluebirds abused her. And Rosie just kept eating and eating and eating. All that pain and insecurity? Gone with a Hershey’s kiss. And the loneliness? Nothing Mr. Goodbar couldn’t fix.

Years ago when I thought I wanted to be a school guidance counselor, I took several courses in psychology. One professor said, “Pathological behavior always starts as a coping mechanism. For a while it works. After a while, it doesn’t.” And this was the case with Rosie. Food kept her company. It made her feel loved. Until it became the reason she couldn’t love herself. And, eventually, the reason she kept people at a distance.

While writing and revising this book, I had to consider many things. What was my point? Did I want to send yet another message to girls that happiness depends on looks? Was this just a story about weight loss? Certainly, I hope not. And this is where the artichoke metaphor came into play. You see, Rosie couldn’t get to her heart. She needed to peel away the layers of herself physically in order to get to herself emotionally. For some folks this might mean ending a bad romance or giving up drugs or alcohol or dropping a friend who doesn’t treat you so well. In Rosie’s case, loving herself was all tied up with food.

Sometimes, I think back to the girl I was in high school. The kid with just average grades. The girl too obsessed with popularity and fitting in and all things social. The young woman who’d suffered the tragic loss of her father, who’d witnessed her mother’s struggle to keep the family going financially. Nobody would’ve guessed at the pain inside. Insecurity burbled; low self-esteem lurked. At every turn I tried to please someone who didn’t really care about me.

Then one day I woke up from that bad dream. I changed some very significant things in my life. I got rid of a few insincere people. By some miracle, I started to see that I deserved better. It was a complicated journey, one I still don’t fully understand, but somehow, slowly, I began to peel away my own layers and get closer to the person I wanted to be. Exercise has been a part of my journey. Something as simple as sweat has sustained me when nothing else could. Praying doesn’t hurt, either, but that’s another blog.

Big or little, old or young, pretty or just average, I hope readers of Artichoke’s Heart will come away feeling the need to be good to themselves.

Copyright 2010 Suzanne Supplee

Thank you, Suzanne, for such a fantastic guest post! What do you think of what Suzanne has said?
Be sure to check out Suzanne's website, and read my review of Artichoke's Heart.

Continue reading Guest Post from Suzanne Supplee: Rosie & Me

Review: Artichoke's Heart by Suzanne Supplee

Artichoke's Heart by Suzanne Supplee (review copy) - Blubber meets Steel Magnolias in this funny and honest story about body image and family.

Rosemary Goode is smart and funny and loyal and the best eyebrow waxer in Spring Hill, Tennessee. But only one thing seems to matter to anyone, including Rosemary: her weight. And when your mom runs the most successful (and gossipy) beauty shop in town, it can be hard to keep a low profile. Rosemary resolves to lose the weight, but her journey turns out to be about everything but the scale. Her life-changing, waist-shrinking year is captured with brutal honesty and humor, topped with an extralarge helping of Southern charm. A truly uncommon novel about an increasingly common problem. From Amazon US

This was such a great story! Oh, I loved it on so many levels! Just so sweet and uplifting! Such an amazing story!

Reading the blurb, you would think that Artichoke's Heart is just about Rosie losing weight, and while that is what it's about, it's about so much more too! There are so many layers to this novel! It's also about friendship, romance, family, community, expectations... I could go on! Each of the layers does link to Rosie's weight issues in some way, but they also stand on their own. Will Rosie's unlikely friendship with a popular girl end up turning sour? Is there any chance the new jock could ever look at her? Will her aunt ever get off her back and stop being so insulting? Will her mother allow someone to help her take on the world? Will her mother's clients stop looking at her in that way? Will she end up making decisions for the right reasons, rather than because of other people? A lot goes on in this novel, but it's never chaotic. It all adds to the story, it all effects the main plot, and you're invested in finding out the answers to all the questions.

I loved how Rosie's attitude changed as the book progressed. I can't really go into this without spoiling the book, but there's a number of times where Rosie would realise something just doesn't matter, or she'd see things a different way, or someone would say something to her that opened her eyes. In some of these instances, even my attitude was changed. There is nothing more fantastic than reading a novel and having it change your perspective for the better and make you view yourself differently. This has happened a number of times for me over the course of Body Image and Self-Perception Month and I just love it! Even though I can't relate to Rosie's weight issues, I can relate to her general insecurities, and it's just wonderful to have been "helped" by Rosie's story.

I also loved the language! This story is set in the south, and being from the UK, at first the language was a bit odd to read Rosie refering to her mum as Mother all the way through the book, calling a woman she was close to Miss Bertha rather than just Bertha, and the colloquial spellings for the southern twang. However, the more I read, the more I loved it! I do love a southern accent, and it just ended up sounding really cute in my head.

There is so much I could say about this book, I could gush on forever, but I think a lot of it would be better discovered in your own reading - I really don't want to spoil this fantastic book for you! I do absolutely love it, and I will be reading more novels by Suzanne Supplee in future. You definitely need to pick this book up.

I'm going to leave you with one quote from the book that has stuck with me, "Well... when you look at a person's eyes or her smile, you can't tell how much she weighs..." (p253)

Thank you to Suzanne for sending me a review copy.

Published: 14th May 2009 (reprint edition)
Publisher: Speak
Buy on Amazon UK
Buy on Amazon US
Suzanne Supplee's website

Continue reading Review: Artichoke's Heart by Suzanne Supplee

Contest Winners!

I have a number of contest winners to announce, so I'll be quick about it!

Fallen by Lauren Kate (45 entrants)

UK winners:
Dwayne Halim
Cora Linn Ballantine
K Begum

International winners:
Dani Sampson
Marian Nguyen

Everything Beautiful by Simmone Howell winner (11 entrants)

Ayesha Riaz

King of the Screwups by K.L. Going (16 entrants)

UK winner:
Jenny Davies

International winner:
Jessica Kennedy

Congratulations! I have emailed you all to let you know. The winners of the Fallen contest will have their details passed on to my contact at Random House, who will send you your prize!

Thanks to everyone who entered! Better luck next time!

Continue reading Contest Winners!

Guest Post from A.M. Vrettos: Writing Skin (Monsters in the Bushes)

Today I have YA author A.M. Vrettos, who is going to talk about her debut novel, Skin.

WRITING SKIN (MONSTERS IN THE BUSHES)

My first book, SKIN, was supposed to be about a kid named Donnie, who was lonely and depressed and felt like he was going to disappear. It was going to be about how he found a light out of his darkness.

And it was about all of that. Sort of.

What I didn’t count on was Donnie’s older sister, Karen, marching across the very first sentence of the book, smirking at me over her shoulder, and flopping down on the living room rug to die of anorexia.

I remember staring at what I’d just written and thinking, “Get the heck out of my book!”

And I swear she lifted her head just long enough to cross her eyes at me, stick out her tongue, and say, “Deal with it.”

Oh, I dealt with it all right. I wrote her out of the book. Easy as anything: highlight, delete, and she was gone.

This was Donnie’s story after all, I told myself. She has no right!

Karen had other ideas, and she kept shoving her way back into the story. And I kept writing her right back out.

We took turns throwing tantrums.

Me: I don’t want to write an anorexia book!

Karen: Suck it up, dude! I’m not going anywhere!

Me: You’re turning this into a problem novel! Like a stupid after-school special!

Karen: First, the only problem with this novel is you. Second, don’t try to lie about your love for after-school specials! They’re probably the reason you write YA in the first place!

Me: No, Robert Cormier and Cynthia Voight are the reasons I write YA in the first place! But you may have small point about after-school specials.

Karen: I’m not leaving, you know.

Me: [garbled obscenity]

You see what I was dealing with?

There was a reason I was so indignant.

I wrote SKIN thinking it would never get published, and for that reason I told a lot of my own truths through Donnie. I was brutally honest because that’s the way school felt sometimes: brutal. SKIN was my chance to write down all of the hurt and the loneliness and all of the stuff that made me want to scream.

Donnie was me. We had a whole my character/myself sort of thing going on.

And then Karen comes in with her big old shiny disease and Donnie and I both disappear into her shadow and she just won’t go away

and it’s so inconvenient

and it’s so messy

and it’s so familiar

and it’s so…

Karen: Familiar?

Me: What?

Karen: Anorexia. You said it’s familiar.

Me: I did?

Karen: Yup. Donnie’s not the only one telling your story, is he?

Me: Oh, that.

Karen: Yeah. That.

Stupid characters. They’re always right.

Because the truth of it, the whole ugly truth, was that Karen’s anorexia cast Donnie into darkness just like my own disordered eating had done to me in college.

So Donnie was me. But so was Karen. She was the terrifying truth that I didn’t like to think about. She was the road I was on but turned back. She was the me I thought I’d left behind.

And she wasn’t going anywhere.

Your past comes with you. We all know that. You can ignore it. Make so much noise you drown it out. But eventually it’s going to come crashing into your present, demanding to be acknowledged, insisting that you look it in the eye.

What you realize is that monsters are most scary when you can’t see their full shape. When they’re hidden in the bushes, leaving you to guess at the sharpness of their claws and the number of their teeth. But when you shake them out, hold them up by the scruff of their neck in the clear light of day, you see that even though they’re sure as sh*t ugly and smelly and snarly … maybe they’re not quite as big as you thought. Not so many teeth, either. And those claws, they’re really not so sharp.

So I acted like I had a choice and ‘let’ Karen stay.

I wrote down all the monsters. What her disease did to her. What it did to Donnie. And what it could have done to me. And in the end, Donnie and I walked out of our shared darkness, and into the light.

Thank you, A.M. Vrettos, for such a brilliant guest post, and for being so open. I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to reading Skin! Be sure to check out A.M. Vrettos' website.

Continue reading Guest Post from A.M. Vrettos: Writing Skin (Monsters in the Bushes)

Contest: Purge by Sarah Darer Littman

Sarah Darer Littman has kindly allowed me to host a contest on her behalf to win a copy Purge!

Purge by Sarah Darer Littman - Janie Ryman hates throwing up. So why does she binge eat and then stick her fingers down her throat several times a day? That’s what the doctors and psychiatrists at Golden Slopes hope to help her discover. But first Janie must survive everyday conflicts between the Barfers and the Starvers, attempts by the head psychiatrist to fish painful memories out of her emotional waters, and shifting friendships and alliances among the kids in the ward. From Amazon US

Rules:

• Open internationally. One winner.
• One entry per person. Mulitple entries will be deleted.
• Enter by filling in the form below.
• The winner's details will be passed on to Sarah to post the prize.
• Contest will will close on 29th July.
• Randomizer.org will choose the winner, who will be announced on 30th July.
• Please read my Privacy Policy.

CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED!

Continue reading Contest: Purge by Sarah Darer Littman

Guest post from Sarah Darer Littman: My Struggle with Bulimia

Today we have a brilliant guest post from Sarah Darer Littman, YA author of Purge.

My Struggle with Bulimia

About a year after my daughter was born, I went to a dress shop in Dorchester, Dorset, owned by the mum of one of my son’s nursery school classmates to buy a dress for the Jewish New Year. I picked out one I liked, and asked her if she had size X.

She looked at me and said, “Um…I think you’re size (X-2).”

“Oh, no!” I argued. “I’m most definitely a size X.”

Shaking her head, she put in the dressing room with the size X, which I tried on. But a few minutes later, she handed me the size X-2 through the curtain and said, “Do me a favour – just try this one on for a laugh.”

I didn’t see the humor in trying on a dress that there was no way I was going to be able to zip up the back, but she was a friend, so I complied. To my amazement the dress fit me perfectly. Not only could I zip up the back, it actually flattered my curves instead of hanging off my well-endowed chest like a potato sack.

When I walked out of the dressing room, my friend smiled.

“I guess I have a body image problem, huh?” I said.

Being British, she was too polite to reply, “No Shit, Sherlock!” but I would have forgiven her if she had.

She was one of the few people to whom I confessed that the body image problem from which I’d suffered since my teens, had at that point actually progressed into something more serious. That I was secretly binging and purging, sometimes up to six times a day. That those tubs of chocolate cake frosting I was buying at Tesco weren’t for making cakes.

It had started slowly. Life was pretty overwhelming at the time. I had two very young children, was working part-time, having been forced back into going back to work before I wanted to, stress in the extended family and medical issues that complicated everything. One day, when I felt really full, a sensation that has always been uncomfortable and loaded for me, I just went into the loo and stuck my finger down my throat. Having been extremely sick while pregnant with my kids, vomiting had lost its horror for me.

Immediately, I felt lighter. Not just physically. Mentally, too. It was if clearing my stomach had also given me a mental clarity, an escape from the swirling mess of feelings that I lived with every minute of every day.

The best thing was, I was in control of it. I could choose when and where to do it. Until…until…I wasn’t. Until the bulimia took control of me. I can’t remember exactly how long it took, but it wasn’t that long before it was no longer a choice to binge and purge but a need. A need so strong that I excused myself between the main and dessert courses of a business dinner at which I was the only woman to go to the ladies room and purge.

I’m fortunate that when I moved back to the United States in 1999, I lived near The Wilkins Center for Eating Disorders an outpatient treatment facility founded by Dr. Diane Mickley. There, through a combination and individual and group therapy I was able to find the help I needed to learn how to overcome bulimia.

There are two things that I credit most, besides the help I received from the Wilkins Center, with my recovery from bulimia. The first is a punching bag. One thing they asked me to do as part of treatment was to stop as I stood in front of the toilet and try to figure out what it was that I was trying so hard not to feel. It took me a long time, but I finally realized it was anger. I came from a background where it was considered unladylike to be angry – a long line of emotion stuffers. I had to learn to how really feel anger and allow myself to experience it instead of turning it inwards, and being able to whack the hell out of something was extremely therapeutic, not to mention great exercise!

But the greatest element of my recovery, was when at age 38, I finally allowed myself to pursue my dream of becoming a writer, something I’d wanted to do since I was in high school. I made myself a secret promise that I would get a book contract as my 40th birthday present, and I got an offer on my first book, CONFESSIONS OF A CLOSET CATHOLIC two months after my 40th birthday. Making a living from my passion has filled the “black hole” inside, something that no amount of chocolate icing could.

Thank you so much to Sarah for such an awesome and honest guest post. I really appreciate you sharing your story with us.

Continue reading Guest post from Sarah Darer Littman: My Struggle with Bulimia

Review: Purge by Sarah Darer Littman

Purge by Sarah Darer Littman (review copy) - Janie Ryman hates throwing up. So why does she binge eat and then stick her fingers down her throat several times a day? That’s what the doctors and psychiatrists at Golden Slopes hope to help her discover. But first Janie must survive everyday conflicts between the Barfers and the Starvers, attempts by the head psychiatrist to fish painful memories out of her emotional waters, and shifting friendships and alliances among the kids in the ward. From Amazon US

Continue reading Review: Purge by Sarah Darer Littman

Review: Fat Kid Rules the World by K.L. Going

Fat Kid Rules the World by K.L. Going (review copy) - When Troy (a hugely overweight social leper) befriends Curt (a skinny homeless punk guitar genius), they both get much more than they bargained for. Troy's macho brother and ex-Marine father think Curt is just a junkie loser - but as Curt stopped Troy's suicide attempt, Troy can't just forget him. Curt recruits Troy as the new drummer in his punk band - but Troy has never played the drums in his life. When Curt's around, though, almost anything seems possible. An outstanding, heart-warming, funny, edgy, debut novel. From Amazon UK

This book is absolutely amazing! I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this book. This book is so good, I just feel so light right now, high. It's just awesome!

The book starts off with Troy actually at the tube station, considering jumping in front of a train. But then Curt, who is sleeping rough on the platform, opens his mouth. From Troy's point of view, everything he does is funny to other people. He only has to sit down in the cafeteria and people laugh. While standing at the end of the platform, he tries to work out if his suicide would be funny. He imagines how he think it would be, and laughs. And then this homless guy says "You laughing at me?"

Four words. If Curt, the character, didn't utter those words, Troy would have probably jumped. There would have been no story. We wouldn't have seen how Troy's complete and utter lack of self-confidence and self-worth could have been turned around.

In the comments of Luisa Plaja's guest post, I commented on how I on't like how in some stories, girls' opinion of themselves changes because of a guy's interest. In a way, I still feel like that, but this book has changed that. Forget the girl is female and the guy is male, and they're attracted to each other. Someone is helping out someone else. In Angela Morrison's interview, she mentions how sometimes all people need is a good friend to gently help. In this book, that is exactly the situation. Curt helps Troy. Not by telling him he looks fine, or by changing the way he looks. But by asking him to join his band as a drummer. Now this is not just some random homeless person inviting him to join his band, it's Curt, Curt MacCrae, only the legendary guitarist who went to his school, who inspires awe in everyone who looks at him. And he has just asked Troy to just his band!

What ensues is a brilliant, brilliant story of Troy's change in attitude. He sees himself differently. Because of the belief and encouragement of people he has the utmost respect for, the way he sees himself changes; his weight, the way he looks - he realises, in the great scheme of things, it doesn't matter.

I have to say, I have the biggest lit-crush on Curt, even if he is a smelly homeless person. His life is complicated, and not something I can go into without spoiling the story. He talks in this strange way that is just so awesome and amusing, I grin whenever he speaks - it's complete nonsense most of the time, but it's brilliant! And he's deep, in this way I can't even explain, because I only barely just got what he meant myself, but it's amazing! And on top of that, he can play guitar and - I know it's a book, and so I can't technically hear him play - he's absolutely unbelievably good! And, well, I've always kind of had a thing for a guy who can play guitar (it's a failing I have, I'm trying to get over it ;)). I just love this guy! Simply because you need to see how amazing it is when Curt speaks, here's a quote:

'"You see, technically, and this is only in the technical sense, legal court orders and all, so, yes, technically I live with my father, but that's hard to do, really, so I don't. You know, mostly 'cause he kicked me out a couple times. And left. But that doesn't mean it's out of the realm of possibility that I could be living with my father..."' (p16)

I just love it! And you know what also helps? It's a book that has a lot to do with music. I'm a music fan, I'm a live music fan, I'm a huge fan of gigs at venues with new bands - and this book was full of it all! It's just brilliant! You can feel the vibrations, you can smell the sweat, you can feel the buzz! It's just amazing!

If you read my review yesterday of King of the Screwups, also by K.L. Going, you'll know that although I absolutely loved it, I had a bit of trouble getting motivated to pick it up once I put it down. I did not have this trouble in the slightest with this book! I always wanted to read it! I was hooked from the first words, and further hooked from the moment Curt speaks, and just dying to see what happened with the two of them and the band. Absolutely awesome!

I cannot recommend this book enough! It's six years old now, but one you should all definitely try to get your hands on! It's awesome, and it's going to stick with me for a while, just how deeply the two guys effect each other. It's now up there with my favourites, and I am just so glad I chose to read this book! I will definitely be checking out more of the novels by K.L. Going!

Thanks to Random House for the review copy.

Published: 1st July 2004
Publisher: Corgi Children's Books
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K.L. Going's Website

Continue reading Review: Fat Kid Rules the World by K.L. Going