Gold, Jennifer On The Spectrum, 319 pages. Second Story
Press, 2017. $14. Language: R (26 swears, 9 “f”); Mature Content: PG-13;
Violence: G.
Clara is an ordinary teenager with a very big problem: she
was just diagnosed with orthorexia, an eating disorder characterized by an
obsession with healthy eating and excessive exercise. To escape some twitter
drama, Clara moves to Paris for the summer to stay with her father, stepmother,
and stepbrother. She nannies for her stepbrother, Alastair, who is on the
Autism spectrum. Through Alastair’s frank and unambiguous approach to the
world, Clara begins to see her eating disorder with new perspective. To
complicate matters, she also begins dating a French baker, who sees her problem
and tries to help her. Even with all the help she receives, the question that
drives the plot is whether Clara will ever accept that she has a problem and
live life free of her body and food obsessions.
This book had an intriguing premise with a girl having to
face her eating disorder in Paris, where delicious food is a part of everyday
life. The main characters were likable and the book held my interest. Though I
liked the characters, they often seemed to lack depth. Changes in the
characters sometimes seemed abrupt since they characters were not fully
developed or the change seemed unexplained. Similarily, some plot points were
believable, but others were not. In particular, it seems unlikely that a social
worker would get involved so quickly when a student was spotted weighing her
food on a scale in chemistry class just one time. On the other hand, one
impressive element was the way the author realistically described Clara’s
reactions to food by showing Clara’s revulsion to food and her internal
monologue of constant calorie counting. She powerfully conveyed how irrational
an unhealthy food obsession can make a person, which could add to a reader’s
understanding of eating disorders. This book receives an R for language because
it uses the “f” word nine times. It receives a PG-13 for mature content because
of drug and alcohol references.
HS – OPTIONAL. Reviewer: MQ.
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