This is a Cybils book, but the opinion expressed in this review is just mine, and not the committee's.
Elena Vanishing: A Memoir Elena Dunkle and Clare B. Dunkle
It opens with Elena in a hospital in Germany, not sure why her chest hurts so much. She's then medically evacuated to the US, to be treated for anorexia. She next years are a tangle in and out of treatment as everyone watches Elena slip away while she insists she's fine.
This is co-written with her mother, who is a novelist, and it was that story-telling sensibility. Part of that is we are in Elena's head for the entire time, and not Elena-looking-back, but Elena-then, so... holy unreliable narrator Batman. It's a pretty warped (albeit fascinating) perspective.
One thing I would have liked is something on what was "really" happening during all of this, because Elena's POV is so divorced from reality. (of course, I could just read her mother's memoir of the same time, Hope and Other Luxuries: A Mother's Life with a Daughter's Anorexia)
It's painful and hard to read, but also hard to put down.
Book Provided by... my local library
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1 comment:
Sounds fascinating to hear from daughter and mother's POVs, especially with one of them being an unreliable narrator as you say. Sounds like a good read!
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