Purge

by Sarah Darer Littman

Overview

From acclaimed author Sarah Darer Littman, a striking story about a girl's recovery from bulimia in the tradition of CUT, PERFECT, and GIRL INTERRUPTED.

Janie Ryman hates throwing up. So why does she binge eat and then stick her fingers down her throat several times a day? That's what the doctors and psychiatrists at Golden Slopes hope to help her discover. But first Janie must survive everyday conflicts between the Barfers and the Starvers, attempts by the head psychiatrist to fish painful memories out of her emotional waters, and shifting friendships and alliances among the kids in the ward.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780545312073
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	07/30/2013
Sold by:	Scholastic, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
Lexile:	950L (what's this?)
File size:	932 KB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Sarah Darer Littman is the critically acclaimed author of Some Kind of Hate; Deepfake, Backlash; Want to Go Private?; Anything But Okay; In Case You Missed It; Life, After; and Purge. She is also an award-winning news columnist and teaches writing at Western Connecticut State University and with the Yale Writers' Workshop. Sarah lives in Connecticut with her family in a house that never seems to have enough bookshelves. You can visit her online at sarahdarerlittman.com.

Editorial Reviews

Written in first person, including journal entries, Littman's chronicle of teen bulimia unfolds as 16-year-old Janie describes her stay in a rehabilitation center for eating disorders. For Janie, bingeing and purging make her feel in control of a body she hates. After a humiliating scene at her sister's wedding in which her disease is discovered, she tries to kill herself and is brought to the center for treatment. Unfortunately, her stay is predictable and her counterparts come across as clichéd. Janie's recounting of the events leading up to her suicide attempt, however, is entirely relatable and her feelings authentic ("Was there ever a period of time when I was able to love food unreservedly, without thinking of it as 'the enemy' the minute it was in my stomach?"). Most realistic is her friendship with childhood pal Kelsey, and their big fight is devastating, as is Janie's losing her virginity to a boy who treats her badly. Littman (Confessions of a Closet Catholic) offers a good, if limited, addition to the resources available for teens suffering with this issue. Ages 12-up.
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Publishers Weekly

Gr 8 Up–Stuck with a bunch of “Barfers” and “Starvers,” Janie, 16, describes her experiences at Golden Slopes, a rehab facility. Partly dead serious and partly humorous, her narrative slowly changes as she goes from believing that she’s almost normal to understanding that she is sick and needs help. Other patients include various girls, an older woman, and a couple of boys, all of whom have wide-ranging issues at the heart of their pain. While other books are more realistic about the time involved in treating eating disorders, Littman provides a sympathetic character and a quick overview of treatment and hopeful progress. Janie moves from denial of habitual bulimia to release back to her regular routine in only three weeks. Her parents are loving, her family is loyal, and her friends are forgiving. The universality of Janie’s blindness to her own behavior is clearly portrayed, as is her later insight into her destructive choices. Drinking and sexual situations are necessary to the plot and are described realistically. This is a worthy addition to the current books on the topic for its relatively lighter touch and accessibility.–Carol A. Edwards, Denver Public Library

School Library Journal

High-school junior Janie has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital for treatment of her bulimia. How she came to be sent there is gradually revealed in conversations, journal entries and her first-person, self-focused narration, in Littman's second effort (Confessions of a Closet Catholic, 2006). Janie shares group therapy with a motley crew of others with eating disorders, mostly teens and including two boys, one of whom is gay, the other a superficial jock. The patients group themselves according to their disorders, with the bulimics depicted as having little understanding of the anorexics. Though eating disorders are never made light of, neither do they become the entire focus, so that even when one of the anorexic girls dies, the impact is minimized. Janie recovers with remarkable speed, though the outlook for some of the other superficially sketched characters appears less promising. An afterword includes a variety of websites and books for information and treatment options. An average teen-angst novel with an underlying but not heavy-handed message, this may start a few conversations. (Fiction. 11 & up)

Kirkus Reviews