Changing Ways – Julia Tannenbaum
Read July 20
CW: ED and SH
Changing Ways follows 16 year old Grace who is struggling to
cope with the stresses of school and starts to fall into patterns of restricting
her food intake and self-harming. A classmate sees her cutting in the locker
room and she’s hospitalised. Though initially in denial Grace gradually
realises that she does have a problem. Overcoming it though, that is another
matter entirely.
I thought that the hospital and recovery sections were very
realistic, especially as it showed relapse, recovery isn’t linear. I loved
Grace and Lou’s relationship. I wish we could have learnt more about James,
especially his gender non-conforming tendencies, he was cute though! My main
criticism was that the early chapters and the onset of Grace’s illness was a
little bit rushed. At one point Grace mentions pro-ana websites but it never
shows her being interested in or accessing those types of websites. Also in
another section we see her worrying about the calorie content of her meals and
snacks when again this isn’t shown previously.
Overall I feel like the novel needed a bit more show and not
tell but I understand that the author is still only a teenager and herself is
in recovery so I guess some aspects of an eating disorder are going to be hard
to write about. Other than that I also wish we’d had more throughout about
Grace’s dad rather than a mini info-dump at the end.
4/5 stars
Stef Out x
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