Kim's Reviews > Skinny

From November 2006 SLJ
In her first year of med school, twenty-two-year-old Giselle Vasco seems to have it all together. But a lifetime of bitter relations with her deceased father is slowly catching up, and she falls into a downward spiral that her mother and her younger sister Holly are powerless to stop. Skinny, though, is much more than a study of one young woman’s battle with anorexia. What starts as the story of Giselle quickly develops into a rich and powerful tapestry of a whole family. When Thomas and Vesla Vasco emigrated from Hungary in the 1970s to escape communism’s rigid caste system, Vesla was already pregnant, and Thomas always had questions about whether the baby is his. His doubts color his whole relationship with his oldest daughter, and when Holly is born 8 years later, the divide becomes more apparent. Holly, a natural athlete who revels in her strength and her appetites, struggles to understand and avert her sister’s self-loathing. The chapters alternate between the voices of Giselle and Holly, and the ability to see the events unfolding through the eyes of both sisters adds a depth and a poignancy that would not have been possible with a single narrator. Ibi Kaslik’s first novel hits the mark with characters with whom teens will empathize, and tackles a relevant and painful subject with grace. A first purchase for high schools seeking fiction that frankly addresses eating disorders.