Trigger Warning: Eating Disorders
Eating disorders are a difficult topic to showcase no matter the media. So I’ve created a top 5 list of my favourite fiction books that depict eating disorders.
- Winter Girls by Laurie Halse Anderson
This book delves between anorexia nervosa and anorexia binge purge subtype. It treads on the inner thoughts on how the disease stops a person from eating and how a person can succumb to the sweet voice that whispers thinner. These stories take place away from a recovery program, it depicts the person living with the disease in reality. This shows the difficulties that come with this aspect on how food can be ignored and the trauma the main character inflicts on her family because of her disease.
- Before We Were Blue by E.J Schwartz
The story is about two girls and their struggles with anorexia, each one having to live with the disease. A huge part of the story takes place in a recovery program with a girl who has failed multiple times at recovery and the other half out in the world seen through the lens of a reality star. Through this point of view the reader can see the triggers why someone can fall back into old habits and the solitude that comes from accepting anorexia into your life.
- Paper Weight by Meg Haston
The novel takes places in a recovery program and the person’s struggles of not wanting to get better but forced to. The eating disorder is categorised as anorexia binge purge subtype that the character hates to be labelled as such for her anorexia is the highest tier a person can be—it’s perfection to her and we see her struggles accepting the disorder, her falling into bad habits and struggling with the trauma that lead her down the path of anorexia binge purge subtype.
- What I Lost by Alexandra Ballard
The novel takes place in a recovery program where a mix of people are thrust into, we have binge eaters and subtypes of anorexia nervosa. The work delves into how a person can be shaped by those around her in developing the disease and how hard it’s to be around a person who is on the verge of anorexia and the struggle of recovery being around this person.
- Skinny by Ibi Kaslik
The book shines a spotlight on anorexia and the mental trauma that can cause such a disease and possible ramifications of starving your body. It is a confronting read.
Those are my top five picks for eating disorders books, buy or borrow the choice is up to you.