Shelby Anderson's Reviews > Skinny

I’m surprised that I hated this book. When I read the back it seemed like it would be a deep story about one person's struggle with anorexia in the POV of Giselle and her sister, Holly. However, the book seemed to completely bypass her illness. It ran right over it several times. The focus that lies on Giselle is all about it, but no one seems to care all that much. She progressively gets worse throughout the book, both in illness and in personality. I hated Giselle. She’s always selfish and acts immature even though she wants to be in med school, and she constantly plays the victim card. And every time she gets a little better, she immediately ties herself up and throws herself under a train. Holly, her younger sister seemed to have it all together and be a very strong character, but slowly lose it following her sister. I thought this was great the way that the girls paralleled in their struggles, which was shown fantastically though the changing in narration. Holly was a much more enjoyable and relatable character because she actually tried to help herself and others unlike Giselle who literally sat in bed for several chapters.
The ending (which I won’t spoil) was super confusing. It took me a few read throughs (and a goggle search) to understand what was happening. After I figured out what happened, it made sense, but until then it was dense and hard to follow.
Overall, the negatives and fouls of the book greatly outweigh the positives of the book. It’s very hard to enjoy a book when you hate the main character and really want her to just die from what she’s struggling with. It’s not a fun read and I’d never recommend it to anyone.