Name of the Book – Thin Girls – A Novel
Author – Diana Clarke
Genre – Mental Health, Contemporary
Year of Publication – 2020
Summary – Twins Rose and Lily are inseparable in every aspect – they’re bond screams “same” to everyone around them. But high school hits them hard and everything changes. Suddenly Rose decides to stop eating and Lily starts consuming everything Rose should.
Rose is then sent to an anorexic facility to help her recover from her condition, but Lily isn’t doing well in her life as well. As Lily’s problems come to the light, Rose sees that she is the only one that can rescue her twin from the depths of darkness that bundle within.
Review – First off, thank you to @readswithrosie from Instagram for recommending this book on her feed. Although this book does revolve around a lot of mental health topics, it was also the first book that made me shed tears within the first 30 pages. The story of Rose being attached to Lily and always willing to do anything for her, while Lily always cared for her “baby sister” immediately sifting into one where they become polar opposites in almost everything just made me feel so sad for them. Rose having anorexia because she wanted to fit in and Lily just trying to be supportive because she ate Rose’s shares is something that I didn’t expect and the continuation of Rose trying to help out Lily by faking her recovery is just so wrong on many levels. Rose’s anxiety was something that I was able to relate to very deeply and I felt that if she had gotten help right when her anxiety had started to get the best of her, she wouldn’t have got anorexic and all of this wouldn’t have happened.
And the ending – I really felt that it could have been more well written since it felt very open ended to me at least given that the last few lines should be giving more closure to the book but that’s okay, I’ll pull through…
Rating – Definitely a 4.5 out of 5. I would give it a five on five but the ending had to take it away from me. Plus the book was a bit too emotional for me to handle at some points which I felt could’ve have been better.
