Magazine Article

More Than You Can Chew

Tokio, Marnelle, Skrypuch, Marsha

2004

Overview

Lily plays a pivotal role as the one character who breaks through [Marty]'s tough shell. When Marty takes the little girl under her wing and tries to nurture her back to health, she is symbolically looking after the little girl inside herself who wants to be loved and noticed. Lily's death coincides with Marty's suicide attempt, and it is a turning point in the book. Marty realizes that all the love she pours on Lily cannot change the outcome. Marty resolves to love herself and not rely on others to save her. In a way, Lily's death is symbolic of the death of Marty's eating disorder. Similarly, the characters are cleverly drawn with sarcastic humour, but they're not forgive the pun fully fleshed out. Marty's fellow patients are so cartoonish that no reader at risk of an eating disorder would recognize themselves in any of them. Marty's boyfriend Zack should be a major character, yet he only appears at the beginning and is then tacked on in a scene towards the end. My visual image of Marty's parents keeps on changing as the novel progresses. This may be intentional to show how Marty's view of them changes over time, but it jars the reader out of the story. Also, there is an allusion to sexual abuse as the novel opens, but this is never developed. The novel would be stronger with fewer day to day anecdotes of treatment and more time spent on Marty's life prior to and following treatment.

• Publisher: CM: Canadian Review of Materials Association
• Subject: Adolescent girls / Eating disorders / Medical treatment