Zoe Letting Go (review)

Zoe doesn't understand why her mother is taking her to Twin Birch or even what the place is. She certainly doesn't look anything like the twiggy, hollow-eyed girls there, who clearly all have serious eating disorders, which she is certain that she does not. She writes to her best friend, Elise, describing the facility and its rules, but also reminiscing about the preceding two years of high school. Her letters indicate that she has become jealous of Elise, who is effortlessly beautiful but naïve about the cutthroat politics of popularity. The epistolary flashbacks also reveal that, after some humiliating experiences with older girls, Zoe and Elise developed an increasingly rigid diet plan, but in this, too, Elise has been more successful than Zoe, which is why Zoe really doesn't understand her confinement to Twin Birch. Unfortunately, the therapeutics of Zoe's situation don't ring true. While she eventually admits what readers will have guessed early on—that is, that Elise is dead—she never actually comes to terms with the fact that she too has an eating disorder, nor do any of the adults help her understand that her support of Elise was problematic; instead, they are so invested in assuring her that Elise's death is not her fault that they do not acknowledge the social aspect of the disease, although Zoe clearly does. Additionally, an emphasis on food throughout the treatment program strongly suggests that tasty meals are the solution to the problem of eating disorders (though the included recipes are indeed excellent). Readers who are interested in a more honest depiction of the role partnerships can play in destructive behaviors would do better to read Anderson's Wintergirls (BCCB 3/09).