Skinniness is Next to Goddessness? Anna’s Story by Julia Keanini
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I give this book a 4.5 star rating. I really liked it. It’s the second in a series but seemed like a stand alone book. I didn’t feel like I had missed anything.
From the titles of the books, I gather that the books encompass the stories of the girls in the Sunday Lunchers eating disorder group. Other than the title though, the eating disorder was sort of a small side issue in Anna’s story.
The story, however, was really good. Anna, a 16 year old girl of Japanese descent, is derailed from “The Plan” that has been a part of her life since third grade. The plan would get her through an Ivy League college education to become a heart surgeon at a great hospital.
With the arrival of little AB, all of a sudden, the plan takes a back seat. AB is the baby daughter of her cousin, Aya. She helps Rhys, the baby’s father, to care for her and develops a huge crush on him. Through the course of the story, Aya tries to sell the baby to make good on a drug/gambling debt and much of the book is about this.
At the end of the trial, and the book, Rhys takes AB and moves to Colorado and Anna is free to be a 16 year old with a plan again. After what her family has gone through, her new plan is a more revised version of the previous plan which will allow her to have a more complete life.
There are family dynamics issues that contribute to Anna’s bulimia and those seem to resolve themselves as well, leaving her to feel free of the bulimia.
I liked this book. It was well written and I’d like to check out book one and any sequels. 🙂