“Skinny,” by Ibi Kaslik, is a novel about Giselle, a doctor who also suffers from an eating disorder. The juxtaposition of a doctor and someone who is dealing with a mental disorder is what first drew me to the book. In my head I was thinking, “Isn’t she supposed to be the one person who couldn’t fall for the trap of an eating disorder?”
The constant battle between Giselle and her inner conscience is what kept me going through the book. Getting a glimpse into someone’s mind and seeing a full-fledged fight interested me, because of how familiar it seemed. Having a battle within yourself every night, pretending to keep a smile that might break your cheeks is something I’ve never seen done well in fiction. Giselle’s conscious mind seems to have a character of its own. Most times when reading Young Adult I find that most villains were overdone, overly cliché, or too absent to cause an everyday terror for the protagonist. But for that antagonist to live within the protagonist, every single minute of every single scene Giselle is present, brings a whole other level to emotional damage.
This book was a rollercoaster of emotions both for Giselle and the reader watching every moment she’s falling apart. Even towards the end, we wish we could stretch the pages out more to see what happens next. We crave to know what really happens in the end for Giselle, both in her physical and mental state. We ask if her doctor’s intuition will finally kick in and now there will be a happy ending, or if she will continue to spiral down this path that she has learned herself is the worst path for anyone.
My name is Abigail Facundo and I am one of the prose and visual arts editors for Levitate Magazine. I enjoy pieces of work that both entrance me and makes me want to think, to see the second or third or million other stories within one piece.
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