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Title: The Best Little Girl in the World by Steven Levenkron ISBN: 0-446-35865-7 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 07 March, 1989 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.89 (118 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Who is Kessa??
Comment: I had wanted to read this book for a long time after hearing what a great portrayal of anorexia it is. However, I was dissappointed. I'll save you the plot of the book (if you're interested, it's on a lot of other reviews). This book was not bad, but I have read many better ones, and it did not live up to my expectations.
The way this book was written is exactly like Kessa's problem. She is alone, and her parents focus all of their attention on her siblings. Similarly, this book focuses its attention not on Kessa, but on her mother, her father, her dance teacher, her
psychiatrist, just about everyone but Kessa. She has a supporting role in the book, so that she serves more as just another client for Sherman to talk about and dissect.
I did not like Kessa, mainly because the reader is not really given a chance to get to know her. The book jumps right in with
Francesca deciding to lose weight and changing her name to "Kessa." Other than her teacher's comment that she might want to lose a little weight, we see little motivation. This is fine, because I understand that there are many lingering, old issues that can bring on anorexia (and we see many of them as the book progresses), however, as a reader, I would have liked to see or learn a little more about the actual development of the disease. I also find it a little unrealistic that she just one day decided to be anorexic and stopped eating. In every case of anorexia I've ever heard of or experienced, there is usually some kind of struggle, some kind of "slip-up." I would have appreciated the book more if Kessa were more realistic, instead of the "perfect anorectic."
My main problem with this book is its impersonality. We hardly get to know Kessa. It seems that Levenkron uses her only as a means-to-an-end, just to get across a point. Maybe this was his intention; however, I would have gotten more out of the book if Kessa was more developed. I would also have liked to see her fighting a little more of the battle, instead of just being helpless and depending on Sherman.
However, this book was fairly enjoyable and interesting to read. It was not the best book on the subject (my personal favorites are "Second Star to the Right" and "Wasted"), but I wouldn't call it a waste of time either.
Rating: 1
Summary: Formulaic and disappointing
Comment: This would have worked far better if it hadn't been so predictable and stereotypical. Maybe it's because the author is, first and foremost, a psychologist/psychiatrist (I don't know which) rather than an author of fiction. This means that the book is very accurate at describing the development and characteristics of eating disorders but the prose is often slightly stilted and the characters one-dimensional. It was also a major problem for me that the protagonist weighs only 98lbs BEFORE she starts to starve herself; she believes herself to be overweight, which for an anorexic is to be expected, but surely her ballet teacher would not say that a fifteen-year-old of average height is overweight at 98 pounds! She's in fact underweight already, so is her ballet teacher very irresponsible? If not, why did Levenkron have her start the book at such a low weight?
Another thing is the stereotypical nature of the characters. Kessa/Francesca is the youngest in a rich middle-class family; she's a high achiever; her parents don't understand or listen to her; she's a dancer and compulsive exerciser: it's such a textbook case that certainly informs about the teenagers most at risk from EDs but does nothing to defy any stereotypes. Something that annoyed me a lot was the treatment Kessa got from some of the psychiatrists, mostly along the lines of 'You're behaving like a little child, now stop being so silly or we'll put you in hospital'; surely a trained psychiatrist would know about anorexia? Maybe there was little awareness of it when the book was written.
The book tries to be both factual study of anorexia and a work of fiction, but is neither fully. For people searching for hard facts you'd probably be better off with a textbook (Levenkron has written some, I think).
Rating: 2
Summary: Good points, but too much language
Comment: I'd love to share the book with my 12 year old who is suffering with anerexia, but the language was inappropriate. I agree with many other reviews, but nobody seemed bothered by the PG13 language. It's not how we talk in my family and I don't need to plant those ideas in my struggling girl!!!
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Title: Wasted : A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia by Marya Hornbacher ISBN: 0060930934 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 15 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Diary Of An Anorexic Girl : by Morgan Menzie ISBN: 0849944058 Publisher: W Publishing Group Pub. Date: 16 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $9.99 |
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Title: Second Star to the Right by Deborah Hautzig, Joy Peskin, S. November ISBN: 0141305800 Publisher: Puffin Pub. Date: October, 1999 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: The Luckiest Girl in the World by Steven Levenkron ISBN: 0140266259 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: March, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self by Lori Gottlieb ISBN: 0425178900 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: 10 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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