Reviewed by Elizabeth E.
This is what it's like to die.
Giselle is a 22 year old in and out of college student, with a 14 year old sister named Holly, a dead unloving father, a broken heart, a boyfriend to drink with, and an eating disorder turning out to be a death wish.
Holly is 14 with a sickly sister, Sol her sister’s boyfriend that doesn't know who he loves more, a dead very loving father, a track meet, visions of her dead father, a Christian junior high, and a wacky existence in adolescence. Sol doesn't know whom he loves more. Mother doesn't know whom to love. Daddy is dead. Agnes swallows cigarettes and demands service.
This is what its like to live.
Holly dances with the ripples and tumbles of adolescence, growing out of the awkward shaped breasts and the bruises. She enters into the real exploration of life and all that existence entails. She comes to find it is a disastrous game. Holly plays the game on the court, on the field, on the track, believing together we can run our weakness away, bruise our discrepancies, and fight off our feelings. A chance with first drinks, first love, first hate, firsts in all that they welcome to a curious mind. And her sister, how did it happen-- the once brilliant woman Holly looked up to with wide wanting eyes was now a child, frail at her weakest weight. Once she was someone Holly dressed like, someone Holly tried to act like, the girl Holly wanted to be had shrunk, into a weakling, a crackling pile of bones and skin. Giselle had fallen and now in her bones with no padding, now in her disparity, now in her childish state, Holly had lost something. "What's it feel like Giselle? What does he do to you?” Holly's curious voice ventured, but all that Giselle had to offer was "Your too young", If Giselle wouldn't tell her she would have to find out by experience, Holly found it a small let-down, Giselle was too broken to breathe.
A few years ago their father had passed away from sickness, a heart failure, and in Holly's mind there was her solace, her safe place, her sanctuary; a Daddy's girl in all her glory. Alone, her life felt reckless and she got her highs from climbing fences, bad mouthing teachers, getting in trouble, and running to breathlessness. But she never got settled because of the constant ringing in her bad ear, the constant scream of her hearing aid that kept her in momentum. Just toss Holly’s life into the mix with puberty, sex, drugs, high school, and fights. Where's the solace?
Giselle. What a mess, a slut, worthless, what a witch, what a let down, a whore, repulsive, and what a sucker. Giselle is 22-year-old student who was in college for a while and then broke down with an eating disorder, with cutting, with speed. She believes that her own breakdown will please the beast inside of her. The voice of the screamer in italics, which brings her to her knees, brings her fingers to her throat, brings the blade to her skin, to the horror that holds her shaking, and lets her know she could never be good enough. In and out of hospitals and in and out of life, the perfectionist's curse has life held by the horns.
Out of treatment, other than group sessions Giselle begins to heal in many ways. Though she is still warped by the past, by long-gone loves, by the hate from her father, the confusion and the self induced whip, she begins to heal, begins to eat with each little bite. Sol falls entranced, a broken soul and another, and their broken pieces fit together like no two whole pieces ever could. But he cannot fix her. The power he has is only to break her more. So the screamer keeps thriving, yelling on dates, at the food Giselle tries to eat, at the smile on Sol's face, at the love her mother gave. At work, Giselle knows exactly what to hurt, the symptoms and the diagnosis, she could cure anything and anyone but herself, mend every bone every organ but her own. The words in her books roll around in her mind. The wrath of truth, the factual information read off medical pamphlets, the facts read from 2000 paged medical teaching books-- it is all a curse. In clear writing, facts tell her how to kill herself, slowly or quickly but the cures are never quite so easy.
In “Skinny”, Ibi Kaslik uses the honest words of reality so well to show how the mind overpowers the truth so many times. While Giselle struggles with eating and living, the factual information tells her how easy things should be and how much he is failing because she cannot do it. When Giselle ends up with endometriosis in the end of the book, she knows why and knows how to stop it, knows how to live but her mind fights it. So in the end, her mind kills her, and in the end she dies, on a rooftop in vain with the people who love her most in tears, in the sweat, and in the rain. The arguments that bulimia and anorexia are not diseases is inaccurate. They bring out someone else in a person. It’s almost perfect to relate them to multiple personality disorder; the girl inside Giselle kills her. Skinny was a wild book that could open any mind to the many different angles of life. Through so many struggles, some seem more relevant and some seem much more serious than others. At the same time, there is a role in here that anyone can relate to; especially women. If that role is the Mother, or the sister or Giselle herself, we find that we all fight a tremendous battle and struggle with painful things. In the end, we find that it is all relevant.
This is what it's like to die.
Giselle is a 22 year old in and out of college student, with a 14 year old sister named Holly, a dead unloving father, a broken heart, a boyfriend to drink with, and an eating disorder turning out to be a death wish.
Holly is 14 with a sickly sister, Sol her sister’s boyfriend that doesn't know who he loves more, a dead very loving father, a track meet, visions of her dead father, a Christian junior high, and a wacky existence in adolescence. Sol doesn't know whom he loves more. Mother doesn't know whom to love. Daddy is dead. Agnes swallows cigarettes and demands service.
This is what its like to live.
Holly dances with the ripples and tumbles of adolescence, growing out of the awkward shaped breasts and the bruises. She enters into the real exploration of life and all that existence entails. She comes to find it is a disastrous game. Holly plays the game on the court, on the field, on the track, believing together we can run our weakness away, bruise our discrepancies, and fight off our feelings. A chance with first drinks, first love, first hate, firsts in all that they welcome to a curious mind. And her sister, how did it happen-- the once brilliant woman Holly looked up to with wide wanting eyes was now a child, frail at her weakest weight. Once she was someone Holly dressed like, someone Holly tried to act like, the girl Holly wanted to be had shrunk, into a weakling, a crackling pile of bones and skin. Giselle had fallen and now in her bones with no padding, now in her disparity, now in her childish state, Holly had lost something. "What's it feel like Giselle? What does he do to you?” Holly's curious voice ventured, but all that Giselle had to offer was "Your too young", If Giselle wouldn't tell her she would have to find out by experience, Holly found it a small let-down, Giselle was too broken to breathe.
A few years ago their father had passed away from sickness, a heart failure, and in Holly's mind there was her solace, her safe place, her sanctuary; a Daddy's girl in all her glory. Alone, her life felt reckless and she got her highs from climbing fences, bad mouthing teachers, getting in trouble, and running to breathlessness. But she never got settled because of the constant ringing in her bad ear, the constant scream of her hearing aid that kept her in momentum. Just toss Holly’s life into the mix with puberty, sex, drugs, high school, and fights. Where's the solace?
Giselle. What a mess, a slut, worthless, what a witch, what a let down, a whore, repulsive, and what a sucker. Giselle is 22-year-old student who was in college for a while and then broke down with an eating disorder, with cutting, with speed. She believes that her own breakdown will please the beast inside of her. The voice of the screamer in italics, which brings her to her knees, brings her fingers to her throat, brings the blade to her skin, to the horror that holds her shaking, and lets her know she could never be good enough. In and out of hospitals and in and out of life, the perfectionist's curse has life held by the horns.
Out of treatment, other than group sessions Giselle begins to heal in many ways. Though she is still warped by the past, by long-gone loves, by the hate from her father, the confusion and the self induced whip, she begins to heal, begins to eat with each little bite. Sol falls entranced, a broken soul and another, and their broken pieces fit together like no two whole pieces ever could. But he cannot fix her. The power he has is only to break her more. So the screamer keeps thriving, yelling on dates, at the food Giselle tries to eat, at the smile on Sol's face, at the love her mother gave. At work, Giselle knows exactly what to hurt, the symptoms and the diagnosis, she could cure anything and anyone but herself, mend every bone every organ but her own. The words in her books roll around in her mind. The wrath of truth, the factual information read off medical pamphlets, the facts read from 2000 paged medical teaching books-- it is all a curse. In clear writing, facts tell her how to kill herself, slowly or quickly but the cures are never quite so easy.
In “Skinny”, Ibi Kaslik uses the honest words of reality so well to show how the mind overpowers the truth so many times. While Giselle struggles with eating and living, the factual information tells her how easy things should be and how much he is failing because she cannot do it. When Giselle ends up with endometriosis in the end of the book, she knows why and knows how to stop it, knows how to live but her mind fights it. So in the end, her mind kills her, and in the end she dies, on a rooftop in vain with the people who love her most in tears, in the sweat, and in the rain. The arguments that bulimia and anorexia are not diseases is inaccurate. They bring out someone else in a person. It’s almost perfect to relate them to multiple personality disorder; the girl inside Giselle kills her. Skinny was a wild book that could open any mind to the many different angles of life. Through so many struggles, some seem more relevant and some seem much more serious than others. At the same time, there is a role in here that anyone can relate to; especially women. If that role is the Mother, or the sister or Giselle herself, we find that we all fight a tremendous battle and struggle with painful things. In the end, we find that it is all relevant.
