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Looks by Madeleine George
****
First off, I admit that I did, in fact, judge this book by its cover. It has a shiny, silver cover and pink silhouettes of two girls. It kind of screamed this book is probably shallow (it's the shininess). However, after reading the first paragraph, I was compelled by the higher powers of the book universe to continue reading. The basic premise is an examination of the high school lives of two girls who, superficially, are opposites. Meghan Ball (aka "Butter Ball") is overweight while Aimee Zorn is extremely skinny. However, they both are responding to their personal lives by controlling what they eat. So, while the manifestation is different, the emotional side is the same. George does not cave in to the temptation to take the easy way and make these two instant friends. Meghan is anti-social to the point of invisibility; she is a quiet observer who, despite her size, moves without being noticed through the halls of school. Aimee is a poet who wants desperately to fit in and succeed. She is not afraid to put her creative efforts out there and gain recognition for what she knows is good writing. Her downfall is that in her desire to participate and be "normal", she also realizes that she has too easily trusted those who are willing to take advantage of that. They are both adrift emotionally with no one to really help them, but are drawn together eventually into a reluctant friendship that could have been cliche but isn't.
Not only was the subject matter fascinating, the characters well-developed with personalities that are original and unique, but the message George is getting across was incredibly powerful. She manages to avoid being heavy-handed about eating disorders because she doesn't focus in on the minutiae of what having an eating disorder entails. It's more about the way these girls feel that is important to her. The word choices and imagery are beautifully poetic at times, and there were several passages that really hit me hard. She knows how to use words to describe things that are somewhat intangible and difficult to conceptualize, and she managed to describe anorexia, overeating, and high school dynamics all in a way that felt new to me.
Luckily, I always go through my stack of Advance Reader Copies backwards,
looking at the blurbs first. I let out an audible gasp of horror when,
after reading the terrific excerpt on the back, I flipped over my copy of
Looks to find the terrible cartoonishness of the cover art.
I know! It's awful. Whoever is marketing this book should really re-think
the cover because it might turn away a lot of people who would otherwise
love this book. I hope enough people will give it a chnace that it ends up
being successful because I really love the story and the writing style.