[.ca] Best Little Girl in The World (ISBN 0446358657)

Disgust:
Dear Reader, If you are looking for a reason to justify the eating disorder culture, might I suggest you read "The Best Little Girl in the World." Not only does this book idolize anorexia but it is a shallow, vain look in futility at the depths and severity of anorexia nervosa. Still caught in the hell that is this disorder, I found this book insulting and quite revolting as a matter of fact. Amidst a world of thiness, appearance, and weight, verging on the brink of death I found this book justified my actions, even reinforcing my disorder. So if in fact you are elated with the concept of entering an eating disorder facility, with absolutely no freedom whatsoever, "the Best Little Girl in the World" is a choice novel to read.

good:
i read this book and it insipred me to wright my own stroy for the a sims 2 stroy. I like how it was written. I likes the authour. Good read

Good unless you are struggling with an eating disorder:
This book is a good learning tool for someone who doesn't know anything about eating disorders and would like to learn, or you know someone who is suffering from an eating disorder and would like to help them. However I do NOT recomend this book to people who are struggling with an eating disorder. I am working on overcoming mine and this book was recomended by a friend who said it helped her learn about eating disorders, but it didn't help me except to give me tips on how to hide my problem more, and to be the "best" bulimic/anorexic. But thank God I have a good support system and I was able to talk to someone about the book and they helped me see that becoming a better bulimic isn't a good thing, in fact it's just hurting myself more.....So this is a good book as long as you aren't struggling with an eating disorder, but if you are steer clear, it was almost a stumbling block for me and almost put me back into the world I never want to return to.

Formulaic and disappointing:
This would have worked far better if it hadn't been so predictable and stereotypical. Maybe it's because the author is, first and foremost, a psychologist/psychiatrist (I don't know which) rather than an author of fiction. This means that the book is very accurate at describing the development and characteristics of eating disorders but the prose is often slightly stilted and the characters one-dimensional. It was also a major problem for me that the protagonist weighs only 98lbs BEFORE she starts to starve herself; she believes herself to be overweight, which for an anorexic is to be expected, but surely her ballet teacher would not say that a fifteen-year-old of average height is overweight at 98 pounds! She's in fact underweight already, so is her ballet teacher very irresponsible? If not, why did Levenkron have her start the book at such a low weight? Another thing is the stereotypical nature of the characters. Kessa/Francesca is the youngest in a rich middle-class family; she's a high achiever; her parents don't understand or listen to her; she's a dancer and compulsive exerciser: it's such a textbook case that certainly informs about the teenagers most at risk from EDs but does nothing to defy any stereotypes. Something that annoyed me a lot was the treatment Kessa got from some of the psychiatrists, mostly along the lines of 'You're behaving like a little child, now stop being so silly or we'll put you in hospital'; surely a trained psychiatrist would know about anorexia? Maybe there was little awareness of it when the book was written. The book tries to be both factual study of anorexia and a work of fiction, but is neither fully. For people searching for hard facts you'd probably be better off with a textbook (Levenkron has written some, I think).

Could Have Been Worse:
Alright, let me start off by saying that contrary to what a lot of people seem to think the main character Francessca/Kessa was NOT suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder. The distniction was used to show her change from the ignored and dutiful Francessca, to when she finally descended into her illness as well as a way to show how anorexia can affect the mind, in the fact that "Kessa" which is what Francessca calls her self after she develops anorexia, can only find faults with her past "self". Despite this distinction, she does not have Multiple Personality Disorder. Now, I liked this book, it wasn't great but it wasn't the worst I've read on the subject. It's biggest faults are that 1) I really think he dives into the disorder all too soon; it's like, page one, I'm fine, now I'm not, I suck so I'm gonna starve myself. He really should have eased into it a bit more in my opinion. This fault is slightly redeemed by the fact that he gives clues and hints that the low self-esteem and all the other factors leading up to the disorder were nothing new and that he just sort of tuned us into her life when the disorder began. The second fault in this book is that it continues the stereotype that only upper middle class girls from good families get anorexia. Now, it doesn't just do this by example in the fact that that is the character that we are given, but one of the doctors in this story actually SAYS this. Yet again this can be redeemed in the fact that this was really the first book written about anorexia and in fact helped clear up even more stereotypes that there were at the time of its publication, so I guess you can't expect them to get it right all in one shot now can you? Unfortunately, many people might read this and take that assumption for truth! Besides these rather large faults the book isn't too bad although originally I started reading and put it down for a while before picking it up again. If you have read this I understand there is a sequel called Kessa where she has a relapse that I am planning on reading soon