I hoped I helped clear up something for someone though.Grade 9 Up–In her first year of med school, 22-year-old Giselle Vasco seems to have it all together.

I finished the book earlier today and was completly confused I had to read the last few pages like 7 times. Even though she makes it sound as if she is running away at the very end of the novel. the only person that could be is Holly considering she's in 8th grade. They also give a date for a tombstone 1968-1981, which makes whoever died 13 or 14. Then in Holly's chapter it sounds like she is discibing a graveyard scene, she says she sees Giselle and a child sized coffin, before Giselle disappers. Giselle also says 'so this is what its like.to die.' that last paragraoh was also very discriptive and it sounds like her body is literally falling apart. Her voice came in to say 'goodbye' Giselle was sure that she could never get away from her.

So Giselle tried to kill herself on the roof top but Sol and Holly stopped her. It's a book that would hold appeal for a wide range of readers. Kaslik's writing is poetic and I think she really challenges the YA description. Skinny feels much less like a book from the Eating Disorder Genre and more like a really great book about a girl who has an eating disorder. As I recall, so many of them go into absolutely pornographic detail in how to starve yourself and/or how to most efficiently become a bulimic - as well, of course, of how to hide it from your parents. Seriously, if you've read any of these books (why can't I remember a single title?) I'm sure you'll agree that this is quite unusual.

In fact, there is only one scene in the book that describes (briefly) how Gizelle throws up her dinner. Skinny differs from those 'anorexic books' of my youth in that, instead of focusing on the obsessive behaviors of the anorexic, Kaslik writes about the obsessive thoughts of her main character. Chapters switch the between the perspectives of each girl, with Gizelle's beginning with snippets from a medical text, giving an eerie, dry tone to the emotional story. Gizelle's had to drop out of medical school due to her illness, and Holly, in contrast, is an athlete. The main characters in the book are Gizelle and her sister Holly. Skinny is a new book by Canadian Ibi Kaslik, who, not surprisingly, had an eating disorder herself. What's interesting is that a lot of these books literally work as How-To books for eating disorders, describing in detail how to get your own! I know I certainly picked up a few bad habits myself from those books. A lot of these books followed the same formula - an ever so slightly chubby adolescent from an upstanding family has a few pressures and eventually almost dies from anorexia or bulimia. When I was but a teenager, I hate to tell you how many books I read about girls with eating disorders.

Skinny by ibi kaslik