Monday, October 19, 2015

Elena Vanishing

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

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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!