Even
as the years pass and the story fades into my memories, Sandy Sherman will
probably be a character that will stay with me long after. On the first page of
the book, there goes a line, “THIS LANDMARK BOOK IS PART OF THE FIGHT AGAINST
THIS DEVASTATING DISEASE” and if this is the one book about anorexia that is a
must-read, then Sandy Sherman is probably the therapist that everyone will want
to have. He is one of the few fictional characters (along with Mr. Darcy) that
I wish will also exist in real life.
From
this book, you would probably get a very typical textbook image of an anorexic
child. Kessa, originally named Francesa was a ballerina and almost everything
in her life was perfect before the illness became the centerfold of her life.
Her obsession with body image stemmed from wanting to be “taut, slim and
straight”, wanting to “lose a few pounds” to please Madame, wanting attention
by her parents. Food became a taboo, food equated to calories which equated to
being fat and sloppy, something that terrified Kessa more than anything. But more
than terrifying, it was sad to see how everything Kessa wanted, she started to
want them because of others, not because she truly wanted them and in the end,
it spiraled into something that she couldn’t control. However, it was a little
frustrating when the book got to a point where everyone was trying to help
Kessa except herself. It was then that I had to constantly remind myself, this
was not something she wanted, she wanted to be slim, to have the perfect body
for dancing (the irony is that in the
end, she was willing to give up dancing just to lose more weight) and not
this terror of a disorder, this isn’t something that she can just snap out of. People
who want to lose weight, really only just want to lose weight, not get a
disorder. From what I understand from the book, I guess that was something
doctors during that time didn’t really get as well.
What
happens in between is for you guys to read, quite predictable really, but what
I liked was the ending of the book. One might go “whut?” after reading it but I
thought it was probably the best ending that this book could possibly have.
P.S. I’d like to also plead with readers to be
patient, this book can get a bit dramatic at times but bearing in mind that it
was written in the 1970s, it is really quite well-written.