Reviews for My sister's bones

The average rating for My sister's bones based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-04-19 00:00:00 Dave Perrin the title of this book makes it sound more harrowing than it is: sure, there is some emotionally devastating content, but the eating disorder narrative is only one strand of many here, and the central theme of the book is the narrator coming of age emotionally and sexually while negotiating a complicated family dynamic in which her father is an overbearing control freak who has to be right about everything. i was pretty impressed with this book and its attention to class, place, and ethnicity as well as gender. the narrator and her family are jewish, and are living in a predominantly italian american neighborhood in new jersey; she has to confront ethnic stereotypes quite a lot, including her own. her admiration/emulation of italian american culture is particularly interesting in that it gives her a way to assert her self-identity as apart from her family's. lots of compassion for all characters; not a whole lot about the roots of her sister's anorexia or even her sister's pathology or symptomatology. the anorexia here, when it is discussed, is often tied to a critique of overconsumption. i haven't seen this connection in other books that i've read and was pleased to see anorexia linked to a politics distinct from societal pressures to be thin. not to be dismissive of those societal pressures or the eating disorders they breed -- at all -- but that in the hands of some authors that's ALL anorexia is, and the anorexic is then disdained for succumbing/selling out in wanting to be thin therefore beautiful. hanauer dramatizes multiple contributory factors of her character's eating disorder without actually pointing and saying "here."

Review # 2 was written on 2007-06-27 00:00:00 Jacob Mcnutt I devoured this book It's been a long time since I've picked up a book and read non-stop the way I read My Sister's Bones by Cathi Hanauer. There are so many things I liked about it, but it was primarily the excellent, utterly readable writing. There is nothing excessive--each word counts in this first person story of Billie Weinstein and her struggle through family life as a sixteen year old girl. I assume this story takes place in the 1970s, given all the references, yet because it is written in first person and doesn't give off even a trace of nostalgia, I had the feeling that I was in the same room as Billie as she told her tale in present tense. Billie's beautiful and intelligent older sister, Cassie, suffers from anorexia. Hanauer expertly details the emotions brought on by this disease on behalf of each of the family members: Billie's fear for her sister, her parents' denial and debate over treatment, and Cassie's deterioration. But this is not Cassie's story. This is Billie's story and it's about so much more than her sister's anorexia. Billie is a rather typical suburban teenager, coping not only with her sister's illness, but also with pressure from her parents to do well on the SAT test, learning how to drive, dealing with a popular boyfriend who wants more from her than she's willing to give, and a best friend with a colorful family who simply disappears one day . . . One can't help but fall in love with Billie. I thoroughly enjoyed reading her story and because of Hanauer's talent for storytelling, I look forward to reading more of her work.