Reviewed in Booklist

By Donna Chavez
June 1 , 2004

De Pree’s account of her life with anorexia might be characterized as a Sisyphian struggle to keep her body from weighing too heavily on the bathroom scale. She recollects an adolescence consumed with counting calories, early morning weight checks, and concealing her dangerously thin body from her parents. In poetically lean prose, she harks back to the Midwestern, middle-class childhood that set the stage for developing emotional issues around food, body image, and sexuality. To begin with, her family idealized control, more specifically, self-control. Moreover, De Pree says that no one ever challenged the popular notion that a woman’s appearance was an index of her worth. De Pree also describes several less-than-ideal early sexual images and intimate encounters, which left her unable to cope with her developing body. Despite all that and despite only recently connecting with a mental health professional who could help her in the long run, she managed enough temporary upturns to marry and bear two healthy children.

Booklist
June 1, 2004