Just Like You

"I swear to you fat is not an emotion. I wish you could hear that... it'd spare you lots of self abuse."

Typically, Young Adult authors are adults. Sure, they have lived through high school and their awkward teenage years, but they aren't currently entrenched in them. Perhaps they have glorified those times, or maybe they view them like being the lone survivor of a zombie plague- all alone and waiting to be devoured by the beasts surrounding you. Either way, they aren't part of the target audience for whom they write their books. So can they make the young adults they write for believe they lived through the same situations? Yep. With one book. In Dear Teen Me, a collection of letters from the authors to their teen selves, you will get a glimpse of just how much they can connect to the teens they write for.

"You know there is no way in hell a guy like him would ever kiss a girl like you, you think."

There are moms who left. Left behind was a girl who had to raise her younger siblings and needed her grandmother to buy her first bra for her. Dads who left an never called, creating an almost obsessive need for attention of any kind. There was a dad who suffered from mental illness in a way that devastated her childhood. And there were great parents who loved, comforted, angered, yelled, supported and loved some more.

"Here's the thing: You're a freak. Always were. Always will be. One day you'll love this about yourself. But right now you hate it."

There are band geeks, theater dropouts, book nerds, smart kids, dancers, jocks, chubby kids, and so much more. Some had a defining moment like when Big Bern (scary Sister Bernard Agnes) recognized you were a fish out of water and suggested you spend some time in the library, the exact spot where you finally fit in. Some just floated through, realizing only now that they missed an amazing opportunity. But they all have something in common. They had no idea who the hell they really were and who the hell they were going to be one day. And that was OK. Because eventually, they would know. 

"The goose egg on your forehead will heal, but the loose thread in your moral fiber is probably still there to this day."

There were bullies. Some were expected, and some were unexpected. Those were inexplicably sadder. Sometimes the bullied became the bully just to turn the tide a little bit. There were cruel taunts and jabs that will stay with you forever. But there were friends. A girl who let you know it is OK to stop worrying about homework and tests and just be free. Friends who want to play Dungeons and Dragons or belong to the breakdancing group right along with your rhythm-less self. And did you know Lauren Oliver and Elizabeth Miles were friends in school?! How awesome and crazy is that?!

"Keep dancing by the highway, you splendid little dork."

There are first crushes, first kisses, and attempts to lose your virginity. There are milestones and drudgery, but it is all that time you need to spend finding yourself, losing yourself, and finding yourself again. This is all the advice you wish someone had told you when you were a teenager, but then you stop and realize even if they had told you, you would have ignored them and made those same mistakes again. This book should not only be read by students from middle school through their young adult years, but also adults as well. Parents, teachers, and just the woman debating whether or not to go to her high school reunion because she was once an awkward young girl who dreaded every day of high school. I loved this collection. Loved it. And there is nothing you will ove more than watching someone realize those very authors you look up to were struggling through the same horror show you went through during adolescence. (And not Rocky Horror Picture Show, kind of horror either. There was no bustier and singing. This was more like Jason and hockey mask). 

"PLEASE stop pretending you don't know the answers in math class! It's okay to be smarter than they boys. Really. They'll get over it."

A New Definition to the Word "Starvation"

After that blasted Wall Street Journal article, I was still left bristling at its attack on Young Adult literature. Then I went back to the article and realized I (like a young adult told I couldn't/shouldn't read a particular book) wanted to read the books she said were so harmful. I had already read a bunch of them, but there were a couple I hadn't gotten to. One was Jackie Morse Kessler's Rage from her Horsemen of the Apocalypse series. But first, I needed to read Hunger, the first in the series. So thank you, Wall Street Journal, for making some very good reading suggestions, whether you meant to or not!

Lisabeth is anorexic and she's good at it. Her parents are too wrapped up in their own lives and miseries to notice how thin she has become. Her boyfriend notices something is up, and her best friend confronts her about it, but Lisa just cuts Suzanne out of her life. Tammy has become Lisa's best friend, because she understands the need for control. Tammy is bulimic. Together, they count calories, binge, purge, control, and keep hearing that voice: the Thin voice. The voice that tells them they are too fat. They need to lose more weight.

When Lisa is visited by death just before she ends her own life with a handful of her mother's pills, she is offered a compromise. If she chooses to become Famine, a Horseman of the Apocalypse, he won't take her. When Lisa wakes up the next day, she thinks it was all just a weird dream, and she goes about her life, counting calories, hiding her eating habits, and making excuses to the people in her life about her body. That night, however, there is a black horse waiting for her, and Death is back to encourage her to ride and do her job. She follows orders, but she doesn't know what is in store for her. At first, the spread of Famine is almost cathartic- a way for her to make others suffer the way she suffers every day (like spreading Famine through a rich, calorie-laden restaurant full of gluttons), but then she sees the unforeseen consequences of her actions: a little girl trampled in the panic and anger caused by hunger.

After a horrific incident with her mother, she realizes she can not only cause Famine, she can also take it away and restore people. She then decides to go out and do just that: stop Famine's torture around the world. She starts small, with a young boy starving, but then she goes bigger, ending the starvation of an entire village. This catches the immediate attention of War, a huge, scary woman who has no qualms about taking care of the mousy Famine. But Lisa has realized she isn't ready to die. She certainly isn't ready to let herself starve when there are too many people in the world who would do anything for a full stomach.

When I first read the description of this book, I thought it was ironic and not just a little morbid to make the new Famine from an anorexic girl- who better to know and love hunger than a girl who lives in a perpetual state of hunger on purpose? But the beauty of the story is that by seeing hunger- real, uncontrollable hunger- Lisa knows she needs help. She learns from the hunger of others and sees how her eating disorder is killing her. The lesson is handled well, and it isn't preachy or heavy handed, which is good because teens can smell a moral lesson from a mile away! The most special part of this story was the Author's Note at the end, where the author shared her inspiration for Lisa- a former friend who was bulimic, started Kessler's bulimia, and eventually died from her eating disorder. It is here that Kessler encourages girls who are suffering from eating disorders to use this book as a stepping stone to get help, that they are not alone in the world.

While the story clearly deals with heavy content material, from eating disorders to the Horsemen, but it isn't done with any gratuitous violence or carnage. Instead, the graphic descriptions of Lisa's anorexia and Tammy's bulimia are done with the ability to make you want to help someone who is experiencing this scary disease, not become sick yourself, as some critics of this short novel might want you to think. A story like this doesn't make kids bulimic, it gives hope to friends, family and the sick kids themselves. I wish eating disorders weren't so common, but can any of us say we don't know someone with an eating disorder or who has recovered? This is a relevant story that will leave you reeling from its implications, and applauding Kessler for having the courage to write it.