Starred Review ALA Booklist (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

Starred Review Crompton's free-verse memoir of her struggle in her teens and twenties with disordered eating and recovery is raw and powerful. In hand-drawn pencil art, she illustrates her story of growing up in the 1980s in rural Butler, Pennsylvania, as the oldest of three children of an alcoholic father and a self-absorbed mother. She believes her family's curse of women with "big, wide butts" and devotedly reads fashion magazines full of skinny models (one of Crompton's drawings is of Brooke Shields in her Calvin Kleins). By 1984, at age 16, Crompton had anorexia nervosa and recounts the agonizing efforts of taking 45 minutes just to eat a rice cake. After her parents divorce and her mother marries a man closer to Crompton's age, high-school grad Crompton moves to NYC and tries a series of jobs, including modeling. She describes being sexually assaulted at a house party and discusses how her disordered eating, which evolved into binging and purging, totally took over her life. Crompton's free verse gives readers a powerful view of her inner self-loathing until she learns to accept herself as she is. At times, this is a tough read, but Crompton's candidly honest story will resonate with anyone struggling with self-image issues and difficult family relationships. Highly recommended.

Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

An honest, brutal memoir told through poems and line-art illustrations about surviving trauma and disordered eating and deciding to truly live.In 1968, the author's grandfather wanted her teenaged mother to have an abortion. Instead, her mom called off "the contract hit" and married her 20-year-old boyfriend. Dad drank too much, Mom made the best of things, and two younger siblings came along. Laurie, who reads white, loved being a big sister but was the "weird girl" who didn't fit in. Slowly, she learned from family, friends, and the media that she was "too much / too big / too earnest / too intense-in-your-face," and she began to dislike herself. Caring for siblings while Mom worked and Dad drank, Laurie tried to be an ordinary 1980s teenager, but she felt like an imposter. Struggling to maintain control amid divorce and loneliness, she convinced herself that losing weight would fix everything. Thus began her journey to anorexia and bulimia. When Laurie left community college to move to New York City, her relationship with food and her body worsened as she also grappled with surviving sexual assault. Eventually, she realized she'd die if she didn't learn to love herself enough to live. This memoir, enhanced by the author's sketches, is both original and moving-but not for the faint of heart. In often graphic detail, beautiful turns of phrase quickly become hard-cornered truths, providing a poetic roadmap from self-doubt to self-hate and, finally, self-acceptance.Relatable, visceral, and memorable. (author's note, resources) (Verse memoir. 16-adult)

Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

An honest, brutal memoir told through poems and line-art illustrations about surviving trauma and disordered eating and deciding to truly live.In 1968, the author's grandfather wanted her teenaged mother to have an abortion. Instead, her mom called off "the contract hit" and married her 20-year-old boyfriend. Dad drank too much, Mom made the best of things, and two younger siblings came along. Laurie, who reads white, loved being a big sister but was the "weird girl" who didn't fit in. Slowly, she learned from family, friends, and the media that she was "too much / too big / too earnest / too intense-in-your-face," and she began to dislike herself. Caring for siblings while Mom worked and Dad drank, Laurie tried to be an ordinary 1980s teenager, but she felt like an imposter. Struggling to maintain control amid divorce and loneliness, she convinced herself that losing weight would fix everything. Thus began her journey to anorexia and bulimia. When Laurie left community college to move to New York City, her relationship with food and her body worsened as she also grappled with surviving sexual assault. Eventually, she realized she'd die if she didn't learn to love herself enough to live. This memoir, enhanced by the author's sketches, is both original and moving-but not for the faint of heart. In often graphic detail, beautiful turns of phrase quickly become hard-cornered truths, providing a poetic roadmap from self-doubt to self-hate and, finally, self-acceptance.Relatable, visceral, and memorable. (author's note, resources) (Verse memoir. 16-adult)