The Art of Starving by Sam J. Miller

I had different reactions to this book depending on where I was in it. For a while, in the middle, I was frustrated at the main character. Not necessarily at the author, but the main character was being such a clueless judgemental asshole that I found it hard to spend time with him, fictionally. I always felt like the author knew that, and was trying to dig deep into something to portray it, but while it was effective, it was also unpleasant.

By the end, though, Miller pulled it off, and I was much happier, and the specific thing that was getting under my skin was called out by the main character's older sister in ways that sounded a lot like my own issues with a particular other book, and that was all good. I found it very moving.

And yet...I wonder. I am not a teenager anymore, never a teenage boy, let alone a gay teenage boy struggling with an eating disorder. The difficult parts of this book seem to come from the author's own experience, and as irritating as I found the main character sometimes, it felt true. The ending, though. The ending was good and satisfying, and showed him turning a corner in a way that I'm sure summed up parts of recovery, and yet I wonder...would the ending ring as true to teenagers? Would they enjoy the first part of the book but find the end too pat, too adult, too much like an adult looking back rather than a teenager still in the throes of it?

I liked the ending, let's make that clear. But was it written for adults to feel like this turned around in the right way? To show the eventual growth? Because it felt like more than just the start of self-knowledge. It felt like the wisdom of having many years with which to look back, and so there's a part of me that wonders how young adults would react to it.

It's very possible that teenagers would like it fine, and react as strongly to the ending as I did. I'm just saying I don't know, and the question lingers in my mind.

I realize I haven't talked at all about what the book is about. The main character is Matt, struggling with the fact that his sister has recently run off, consumed with the idea that someone must have hurt her, and that he thinks he knows who - the boy they both had a crush on. His Mom works at the pig slaughterhouse, and hours are getting reduced. Matt feels ugly and unlovable, and if the world is out of his control, he starts to focus on not eating as a source of power, control, success, and...super powers.

The super powers are subtle enough that while it seems that Matt can do supernatural things, he's in a state where he's not an entirely trustworthy narrator. But it's enough to get this book nominated for a YA Not-A-Hugo, and I think it belongs there.

Matt is vengeful, and wants to hurt the person he assumes hurt his sister. Problem is, he has absolutely no evidence. And to the reader, it's fairly clear that his desire to hurt is clouding any ability to figure out he's probably wrong about what he assumes happened. So, that, plus all the self-loathing, both feels very teenager, and is not a lot of fun to read. It's like reading Catcher in the Rye as an adult - Holden is far more of a brat when you're further removed by age.

But then there was the real thing that got under my skin and made me dislike Matt, if not the book itself. That would be the part where he really likes one of my least favourite books, On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Both Matt and the boy he both crushes on and blames for his sister running away, seem to find great meaning in that book. It's brought up a bunch of times, and again, I think this is a commentary on how young men find meaning in that particular work, without in any way noticing that the "freedom" Kerouac is lauding is provided by women's labour, both economic, physical, and emotional. And, as Matt's sister points out later, thereby becoming my hero, sexual.

So yeah, it gets called out near the end. And I felt like the whole book ended well. For a while there in the middle, though, oof, I was having some trouble.