Review: Massive by Julia Bell
Oddly enough, this was the third British novel I read in a row without knowing until I was about twenty pages in. I fell in love with YA Brit Lit after devouring Louise Rennison's Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging series. I just adore the Brit voice that comes through in this literature -- you can hear the narrator's in your head, actually hear their voices. Unfortunately, I lost Carmen's voice about halfway through this novel.
I will admit I picked this book up based on its cover (a bathroom scale with its title etched where the numbers would be) and because it is a Simon Pulse publication. My stepsister was also dealing with having a best friend go through an eating disorder and I hoped this novel might be something I could give it to her in order for her to understand what she was seeing in her friend. I fell in love with it after discovering Carmen's voice, and I also wanted to see what would happen with her mother--an overcontrolling, obviously anorexic, mentally ill mother. The woman creeped me out, for lack of better words; she was almost like a train wreck--I wanted to turn away but I kept staring at her and her freakishness.
I was disappointed when Carmen's mother was able to infiltrate Carmen's head. I wanted her to be strong, wanted her to confront her withering mother, wanted her to run to her father and beg him for help. She seemed like a strong character who could stand up to her and right when she seemed poised to do so, she starts throwing up her meals. The change in her voice, her character, was so abrupt that it completely put me off to the rest of the novel. I was disappointed in her, totally unsympathetic. I only finished the book to see if she maybe got her strength back and to see what happened to her mother. The "supposed to be symbolic" burning of the Barbie dolls in the closing scene was out of place -- no where in the novel did I remember a Barbie reference and although her distorted body is a "cause" of eating disorders, I (and hopefully other readers) would realize Carmen's own issues did not result from Barbie, but rather from her mother.
I ended up not giving this book to my sister, mainly because I didn't think it would help her to better understand her best friend. Maybe she could learn a lesson via Carmen's mother, but I do not think Carmen got across Bell's intended message.