I really found this to be a very confusing novel. I understand the anorexia issue. I suffered from it myself years ago.
I found it hard to know whether these two people actually loved each other or were only leaning on each other about their own issues. Also, I had trouble with understanding the stellar part of the text. ( )

A first novel by a young novelist and it feels like it. The plot is thin, the characters vague and without motive. Gerard's form allows this:

Belief is brittle. My skin is dry and brittle and cracks. I am always bleeding, especially from the fingers. I do not believe that John loves me. There.
I believe John used to love me.
I do without my body: I am you, I am me, I am you, I am me: I always end with you.
Do you remember what happened last night?
I don't
The question is what do I want in my center? The question is What Do I Want? I blow smoke into myself. (70)

The writing itself is lovely and I'd probably like it if Gerard's ruling metaphor of stars and orbits and novae wasn't stolen from a stronger, earlier novel about a young woman with anorexia: Jenefer Shute's Life-Size (1992).

When you (or your agent) pitch your book to publishers, one of the things they ask you to do is prove why your book is different from other books on the same topic, so Gerard or her agent had to know about Life-Size, one of the most noted novels about eating disorders. Yet, Gerard went on, plagiarizing Shute merrily, in her novel that has a fraction of the depth, complexity, and power of Life-Size. She doesn't even note Shute or Life-Size in the acknowledgements. This is like writing a novel about an adorable London urchin who gets caught up in a gang of street thieves led by Phagin and not crediting Dickens.

Gerard's fragmented, elusive form allows her characters to move throughout her story without motivation, background, context. We have no idea why the narrator feels the way she does; she is simply presented to us as Anorexia itself. The same for John, the only other character, who is the Alcoholic, Drug Addict, Impulsive, Bad Boyfriend. The escalation of their behaviors at the novel's end has no explanation beyond those stereotypes.

So, lovely writing; plagiarized, thin, motiveless content. If you're writing a dissertation on this kind of literature, I'd recommend it; otherwise, keep browsing, this book isn't worth your time. ( )

If I'm being honest with myself, I can't say that I 100% understood all of this fractured and jumpy narrative but it didn't stop me from being moved by the emotions that drove it. The extended "I want" sections were so powerful and sad. ( )

Didn't really understand all the acclaim this small novel received. I wish Goodreads allowed half stars, more like a 2 1/2. ( )

could not put down. will probably pick back up and read again and maybe be able to better put into words how i feel about this one. ( )