Here’s a collection of books that explore body image, disordered eating and recovery. You’ll find a mix of helpful non-fiction, powerful fiction and compelling memoirs. Some of these books are considered young adult books, but they are just as powerful for adults.
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Paperweight by Meg Haston
I read this hauntingly beautiful book on the recommendation of my teenage daughter. She told me it was powerful, told me I wouldn’t want to stop reading it…and she was right. Meg Haston invites readers into the mind of Stevie, causing us to come to terms with our own feelings about family, food, control and even death. And I’m thankful for the chance to talk openly and honestly with my teenage daughter as a result of living through these pages together.
What I Lost by Alexandra Ballard
This book chronicles Elizabeth’s experiences as she enters residential treatment for her eating disorder and it took me on an emotional roller coaster. I thought I’d gain insight into the mind of a troubled teenage girl with disordered eating, and I did, but I also gained insight into the mind of her troubled mother with disordered eating. And it hit home. Now, I do not have an eating disorder, but I do have a complicated relationship with food. This book made me face some difficult realizations and really question my actions for how they impacted my own children whether I knew it or not. This was an incredibly powerful book for me.
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
Hold onto your heart. Lia and Cassie are two lifelong friends struggling with eating disorders…until one of them dies. This book explores the incredibly painful path to recovery from an eating disorder that can take hold of every aspect of your life. It’s raw. It’s real. It’s hard to read. But it offers an important glimpse into what it feels like to struggle with an eating disorder, helping those that have one feel less alone and those that care for their loved ones to better understand. I’m still reeling from it.
Lighter than My Shadow by Katie Green
Like most kids, Katie was a picky eater. She’d sit at the table in silent protest, hide uneaten toast in her bedroom, listen to parental threats that she’d have to eat it for breakfast.
But in any life a set of circumstance can collide, and normal behavior might soon shade into something sinister, something deadly.
Lighter Than My Shadow is a hand-drawn story of struggle and recovery, a trip into the black heart of a taboo illness, an exposure of those who are so weak as to prey on the vulnerable, and an inspiration to anybody who believes in the human power to endure towards happiness.
Ink in Water: An Illustrated Memoir by Lacy J. Davis & Jim Kettner
At once punk rock and poignant, Ink in Water is the visceral and groundbreaking graphic memoir of a young woman’s devastating struggle with negative body image and eating disorders, and how she rose above her own destructive behaviors and feelings of inadequacy to live a life of strength and empowerment.
Blending bold humor, a healthy dose of self-deprecation, vulnerability, literary storytelling, and dynamic and provocative artwork by illustrator Jim Kettner, Ink in Water is an unflinching, brutally honest look into the author’s mind: how she learned to take control of her damaging thoughts, redirect her perfectionism from self-destructive behaviors into writing and art, and how she committed herself to a life of health, strength, and nourishment.
Brave Girl Eating: A Family’s Struggle with Anorexia by Harriet Brown
In Brave Girl Eating, the chronicle of a family’s struggle with anorexia nervosa, journalist, professor, and author Harriet Brown recounts in mesmerizing and horrifying detail her daughter Kitty’s journey from near-starvation to renewed health. Brave Girl Eating is an intimate, shocking, compelling, and ultimately uplifting look at the ravages of a mental illness that affects more than 18 million Americans.
Please eat…: A Mother’s Struggle to Free Her Teenage Son From Anorexia by Bev Mattocks
Bright, popular and a star on the rugby pitch, 15 year old Ben had everything he could want. But then food-loving Ben began to systematically starve himself. At the same time his urge to exercise became extreme. In a matter of months Ben lost one quarter of his bodyweight as he plunged into anorexia nervosa, an illness that threatened to destroy him.
“Please eat… A mother’s struggle to free her teenage son from anorexia” is his mother’s heart-breaking yet inspirational account of how she watched helplessly as her son transformed into someone she didn’t recognise, physically and mentally. It also describes how, with the help of his parents and therapist, and through his own determination, Ben slowly began to recover and re-build his life.
Believarexic by J.J. Johnson
Fifteen-year-old Jennifer has to force her family to admit she needs help for her eating disorder. But when her parents sign her into the Samuel Tuke Center, she knows it’s a terrible mistake. The facility’s locked doors, cynical nurses, and punitive rules are a far cry from the peaceful, supportive environment she’d imagined.
In order to be discharged, Jennifer must make her way through the strict treatment program—as well as harrowing accusations, confusing half-truths, and startling insights. She is forced to examine her relationships, both inside and outside the hospital. She must relearn who to trust, and decide for herself what “healthy” really means.
Elena Vanishing by Elena Dunkle & Clare B. Dunkle
Seventeen-year-old Elena is vanishing. Every day means renewed determination, so every day means fewer calories. This is the story of a girl whose armor against anxiety becomes artillery against herself as she battles on both sides of a lose-lose war in a struggle with anorexia.
Told entirely from Elena’s perspective over a five-year period and co-written with her mother, award-winning author Clare B. Dunkle, Elena’s memoir is a fascinating and intimate look at a deadly disease, and a must read for anyone who knows someone suffering from an eating disorder.
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
This memoir was honest, raw and quite frankly, shocking. Just as we cannot judge a book by its cover, we cannot truly know a person from their public persona. My own children loved watching Jennette McCurdy as Sam in iCarly and we adopted a weekly spaghetti taco tradition as a result. But underneath the cute, perky personality many have come to love was a girl struggling under the weight of her mother’s unhealthy expectations and emotions, a long battle with an eating disorder and a life that she did not feel good living. This book chronicles her journey and readers will be entranced from the beginning, cheering her on with every turning page.
Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works by Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch
Befriending Your Body: A Self-Compassionate Approach to Freeing Yourself from Disordered Eating by Ann Saffi Biasetti
I’ve been on a health journey for a while and this journey has involved a lot of dietary changes. First gluten-free, then dairy-free, then sugar-free and now, low carbohydrate, too, all in a quest to feel better. But in that process of using food as medicine, I noticed that food was starting to control me rather than feeling in control of how I ate for wellness. This book is getting me back on track. It’s a beautiful introduction to a new way of thinking about our bodies, our minds and our health. Filled with the science I need to understand and the practical exercises to actually bring about positive change, this book is sending me on a new journey: one guided by my body and how it feels, my mind and how it thinks and the connection between the two. This is a beautiful book for all women everywhere.
Good Enough by Jen Petro-Roy
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.
Since She's Been Gone by Sagit Schwartz
Some books have us compulsively turning the pages. Some books pull at the heartstrings. And others give us fascinating insight into a world unlike our own. This books does all of those things. Readers will become instantly and intimately connected to Beatrice, a therapist navigating unexpected life changes that awaken the eating disorder she thought she left behind years ago. Alternating between past and present readers come to understand how Beatrice’s eating disorder came to have a harrowing hold on her in the present as she navigates shocking new information about her mothers death. I was surprised at every turn and didn’t see the truth coming. This is a book for readers who love suspense, family drama and insight into a way of thinking other than their own. It’s also a must read for anyone wanting or needing insight into the complicated world of eating by disorders. It’s a must read.
