More Than You Can Chew by Marnelle Tokio

in general, not only the staff but every character is written very poorly. the staff behaves so incredibly unprofessionell that it was very difficult for me to believe that the protagonist is actually in a hospital right now. it reads what the other 13 year olds imagined what being in a psychiatry hospital is like. This book reads like a fanfiction that i was reading at the age of 13. I think we all have this fragility to some extent there's always the danger of falling apart. Gradually, she opens up and finds and rebuilds her former confidence – discovering that she has what it takes to work for her own recovery. Marty is so strong, despite being all bent and prickly and curled in tightly around her tiny tiny shrunken stomach, protecting herself. This is described as an “autobiographical novel.” It’s an excellent read. So, gradually, she starts to get better, and she makes it back to the outside where she really has to concentrate to live “normally,” but we end on a hopeful note.

And somehow this act of desperation gives her all kinds of courage to face the things in her life that are really messed up. She fails, much to everyone’s relief (even her own). Marty can’t handle it and tries to commit suicide. Mom and dad are awful to one another, the ex boyfriend makes an appearance, and Lily, her friend in the institution, dies while she’s away. She's got the potential to save herself if she can focus her rage, control, and talent on someone or something else (and not on self-destruction).Īround Christmas, she’s home for the holidays and things are pretty bad. She’s a big pain in the ass to the adults around her, but she’s so gentle with younger kids. She gradually comes out of this obsession, at least to the point of being able to connect with and mentor some of the other girls on her ward. When she talks about her anorexia it’s not always the “thin is beautiful” kind of stuff that you often hear, but more “control is beautiful” - here is this one thing I can do phenomenally well, and so I do it, because everything else is falling apart I do it even if this thing that I do will eventually kill me. Marty has such strength and she’s fighting against all of the pain inside of her. There’s lots here about anorexia and what that’s like, but it’s also character driven.

Still, he’s dad, and Marty wants so much (though she’d never, never admit it to anyone) for him to be part of her life and actually care about her.

Her dad is so far removed and so distant and so disconnected that he’s like a bad dream. Her mother is a recovering alcoholic when Marty gets her own lockup therapy. What starts it? Everything, nothing, feeling like things are spiraling out of control, having her then boyfriend tell her she’s a fat slut when he finds out she’s not a virgin. She’s been sent to an institution to deal with that, because she’s dangerously underweight.

More Than You Can Chew by Marnelle Tokio