GOOD ENOUGH by JEN PETRO-ROY provides an honest, real look into Riley’s battle with anorexia. This story rings true on every level–eating disorder behaviors, hospitalization, friendship with other patients, misunderstandings by family/friends, and the struggle against the disease. This book is the best I’ve seen in addressing the topic of eating disorders. A MUST for every middle grade, middle school, and junior high school student!! The author’s Own Voice and experience are heard throughout the story.
Before she had an eating disorder, twelve-year-old Riley was many things: an aspiring artist, a runner, a sister, and a friend.
But now, from inside the inpatient treatment center where she’s receiving treatment for anorexia, it’s easy to forget all of that. Especially since under the influence of her eating disorder, Riley alienated her friends, abandoned her art, turned running into something harmful, and destroyed her family’s trust.
If Riley wants her life back, she has to recover.
Part of her wants to get better. As she goes to therapy, makes friends in the hospital, and starts to draw again, things begin to look up.
But when her roommate starts to break the rules, triggering Riley’s old behaviors and blackmailing her into silence, Riley realizes that recovery will be even harder than she thought. She starts to think that even if she does “recover,” there’s no way she’ll stay recovered once she leaves the hospital and is faced with her dieting mom, the school bully, and her gymnastics-star sister.
Written by an eating disorder survivor, this is a realistic depiction of inpatient eating disorder treatment, and a moving story about a girl who has to fight herself to survive.
Book Stats
- Genre: Realistic fiction
- Interest Level: 5-8
- Pages: 267 pages
- Publication Date: February 2019
- Topics: Eating Disorders, Anorexia Nervosa, Diaries, Hospitals, Family Life, Friendships, Illnesses
Ratings:
- Reading the Middle:
- grade: A
- audience: upper middle grades, middle school, junior high, high school
- Common Sense Media: 5 of 5
- Goodreads Rating: 4.33
Possible Cautions:
- eating disorder, bullies, anorexia, bulimia, purge, illness, hospital, death
Detailed Notes:
- /////// SPOILERS /////// SPOILERS /////// SPOILERS ///////
- Dedication: To the real Brenna and Ali, and to everyone else I met along the way.
- First Line: There’s a girl with an IV int eh bed next to me.
- Diversity: eating disorder, Muslim, LGBT
- “There’s a girl with an IV in the bed next to me. She’s pale and has dark circles under her eyes, like she didn’t get any sleep last night. She probably didn’t. That’s why she’s sleeping now, at four in the afternoon.”
“I’m not going to be here long enough to make friends.”
“I’ll stare out the window and write in my journal, even though all I want to do is hide my head under this limp pillow and cry until I fall asleep, too. I can’t let myself cry.”
“Food is gross.”
“They tell me I’m not good enough. They tell me to be skinnier and prettier. To run more and eat less. They tell me that everything about me is wrong. Those thoughts are part of me now. These people here, the doctors and the nurses and the counselors and the nutritionists–they can’t take them away. I don’t want them to take them away. I’d be fat then. I don’t want to be fat. Then I’d be nothing at all.”
“I don’t get Mom’s valuable time anymore. She doesn’t think I deserve it.”
“I’m not doing this for attention, though. I don’t want attention like this. I would have been fine if no one had noticed what I was doing. ”
“I would have been perfect if Mom hadn’t noticed me. After all, she usually doesn’t.”
“Dad nodded sternly, back Mom up. That’s all he’s been doing lately, nodding and pressing his lips together. ”
“They’d never make Julia stop gymnastics, though. Even if Mom and Dad have to get three extra jobs.
Mom and Dad think sister is perfect. No time or interest in Riley.
Riley can stop whenever she wants to. But doesn’t want to.
“Everything is my fault now.”
“This has to be a quick stay, I’m not that sick. I eat. I just don’t eat as much as Mom and Dad want me to.”
Riley is 12 years old, anorexia
“One fainting spell does not make me sick. Especially since I feel ridiculously huge. I didn’t run today.”
“Then I’d run some more. To get better. To lose more weight.”
“I’ll smile and nod until my head falls off. That will be my disguise.”
“My stomach hurts so much. It looks like there’s a baby in there.”
counselors listen to patients pee and patients need to count out loud; don’t want patients to throw up while in bathroom
“I think about food way too much. I don’t want to like food. I can’t help it, though. I tell myself I don’t want the food they give us. I tell myself it’s disgusting. I still want it though.”
Riley likes to draw but believes that mom doesn’t like her art.
“I just want something of my own. Something I’m good at.”
Riley isn’t connected with dad; believes he is ignoring her and won’t spend any time with her
Trouble with friends, one is angry and not talking to her and other friend maybe gets it
“Apparently I’m not normal because I don’t like to eat breakfast. But neither does Mom. And no one’s calling her sick and locking her up. Mom eats diet food, too. She weighs herself every day. No one sends her to treatment.”
sister is a gymnast and underweight but everyone calls “her a superstar”
“I know there’s nothing wrong with eating a lot. Or being fat. I just don’t want to be fat. I don’t want to be normal, either.”
Riley went to counseling with mom and mom said all the things that have happened; then Mom cried so Riley had to comfort mom
“You need butter. You’re too skinny.” A thrill went through me when Mom said that. A thrill still shoots through me every time anyone says that. It’s the same way I feel when I step on the scale and see a lower number. It’s the thrill of success”
“Stop being so selfish,” Mom hissed. ACK, this mom!! Mom says Riley is getting sick for attention.
“Brenna talked about coming out as bi to her friends.” Love the LGBT representation.
“I’m scared of my food and not running and gaining weight. I’m scare at home and I’m scared at school. I’m scare of what will happen when I get out of here. I’m scared of having to stay in here forever.”
Talia, another student at school, convinced everyone to make fun of Riley because of her smelly tuna fish sandwich, then kids calling her Rancid Riley or Roly-Poly Riley
Talking about Meredith at the hospital: “Ballerina is a costume she can never slip out of.”
Problems with weight started when school reported BMI’s to students. Nurse said Riley’s BMI and Talia (bully) heard and then always made fun of Riley and got other students to do the same; after that, Riley was always more and more concerned about her weight
When someone has anorexia, then their ability to concentrate, think is decreased
“Sometimes I don’t know whether I feel too much or nothing at all.”
Riley knows it would be easier to recover if she knew things would be ok at home but she still needs to go back to the problems she left
Other patients at hospital feel like friends, close friends; share stories with one another
Have to avoid eating disorder behaviors (just like avoid pain behaviors), chew too fast or too slow, move too much, chew too many times
“Ms. Marvel…Female Superheroes! Girls who aren’t just sidekicks!”
another patient has bulimia/binge-eating
“I’ll eat as long as I’m here, but I’m stopping the second I get home.”
“They tell me that life will be better without an eating disorder, that my body won’t hurt anymore and I won’t be sad. But–” “What if it’s not?”
“Because that’s my deepest, darkest secret: I hate being like this. It makes me sad and it makes me hungry and it makes me hurt. I say that I like being skinny, that I like not eating, but that’s not true all the time.”
“How am I supposed to know what to do if I don’t know what I weight?”
People with eating disorders emphasize their perceived problems more than other people would
Riley is sacred when she feels hungry
Poor/lack of communication between Riley and parents
treadmill incident – Riley running on treadmill when mom told her not to; mom called her selfish for doing it
“I like thinking that the good parts of me still exist.”
good LGBT representation again
Patient, Rebecca, leaves with her dad
roommate Ali is very sick and doing crunches at night
“This is the stuff that happens all the time, the part of the eating disorder I hate. I feel good when I restrict. I feel good when I exercise. I feel great when I listen to that sneaky voice inside me. Only for a while, though. Then the regret comes, because I know I’m hurting myself. I’m hurting other people too.”
“It surprises me every time someone in here thinks like me. I’m so used to feeling like ‘the only one’.”
Riley thinks Maybe she could recover; maybe hit the “turning point”
Riley’s friend at home is angry because Riley skipped her bday party; Riley was afraid of all the snacks that would be there; lied to friend and said she was too sick to go to party
“And right now, I’d rather have Josie than be this skinny.”
“The laugh bubbled to the surface like something rising from the ocean. A shipwreck, revealing itself after years buried at sea. A treasure.”
Many references for current middle grade/middle school books – love! All’s Faire in Middle School, The Girl Who Drank the Moon, The House That Lou Built, Turtle in Paradise
Riley mad at everyone
Another patient, Laura, purges. “I miss being empty. Being hungry. Light. Clean.”
‘They’ve taken my eating disorder away. It’s trapped inside my brain, screaming for freedom.”
patient Ali continues to be angry and mean
“When I recover, I’ll look different. I may not be skinny. I’ll still be me, though.”
Aisha celebrates Ramadan with her family but they won’t let her not eat this year.
Mom is afraid Riley will die
Lasagna catastrophe because mom used regular cheese instead of fat free
“farting is normal while our bodies are getting used to food again.”
Mindfulness group
“even though the rest of the world may think of us as sick, we’re all just people with our own issues.”
“I pretend I’m not scared, but I really am. I’m scared a lot. I just want everyone to think I’m strong.”
Riley’s concerned about mom’s dieting when she goes home
“thigh gaps” and best angle for selfies
Patient Brenna is leaving hospital because insurance won’t pay for her; wont’ pay because her weight went up; Brenna is afraid she will fail
Dad wanted Riley to just get better
Recovery is full of ups and downs, not easy
“Today I’m reclaiming weird as a compliment.”
“Then all of a sudden I realized I hadn’t thought about lunch once. It felt like someone had let me out of a jail cell after I’d been sentenced to life in prison, except instead of my body, it was my brain that was free”
Brenna started a diet and then things fell apart and she is back at hospital
Riley will be discharged because she is “better”
Riley is worried all the time
new girl, olivia, comes to hospital and thinks she is better than everyone
mom doesn’t understand that it will be very hard for Riley
Riley scared
“I will do this. I have to do this. There’s no way I’m not going to do this. Those will be my sword and my shield.”
“I let go of fear, fear of the world. Fear of being unlovable. Fear of weight. Fear of taking up space. Fear of being Riley. It’s okay to be Riley. I want to be Riley. I am Riley.”
Updated: 04/28/2019
Reading the Middle 