I admit – I had a very personal reaction to this book. At first, I thought that I would probably not recommend it for young women who struggle with eating disorders, since it might be seen as partially triggering. Isabelle and Amanda enumerate the “tips and tricks” of how to binge and purge more effectively throughout the book. Friend doesn’t pull any punches as far as illustrating how chaotic, desperate and horrifying binge eating can be, and for those empathetic readers who are going through the process of recovery themselves, it might be all too familiar. However, as I thought about it more, these passages, while powerful, might be considered almost superficial when considering the book’s larger message. Here’s why:

Perfect emphasizes that eating disorders are often caused by other emotions beyond a desire to be thin. Yes, Isabelle comments about her “fat” appearance, but it’s not really her main preoccupation. The death of her father, her mother’s grief, her feelings of alienation from her family are all much more present in the book than her desire to be thin. More importantly, the “fat” part of her concern is never present during any of the binge/purge scenes, which are mainly reactive to her feelings about her father. Ashley, too, while making the obligatory comments about her thighs while looking in her underwear, is symptomatic as a result of the absenteeism of her parents and her loneliness, rather than a fear of fat. While at first it bothered me that these reasons were “too facile” – that they didn’t really offer up the larger picture that some issues which lead to eating disorders are more vague and harder to pinpoint that absentee or deceased parents. Then I decided that this book is for pre-teens and I was reading too much into it with personal bias and maybe I should relax a little bit. ^^

While, as I mentioned before, Friend’s writing spares no expense in the description of the “gory details” of bingeing and purging, there was never any mention of the fact that Ashley or Isabelle gained or lost weight because of their symptoms. It’s given that Ashley looks gorgeous all the time, but Isabelle never comments on changes in her own weight. The fact that there is never any “positive” outcome of all their behaviours is another reason I think that this book is “safe for consumption,” if you will. Also, it’s interesting and gratifying to see an author writing about bulimia, rather than anorexia. One problem I have with the treatment of eating disorders in the media and society at large is that while people (in general) are perfectly happy to discuss restrictive behaviours and show endless pictures of emaciated models, no one seems to be willing to talk about bulimia or binge-eating disorder because, well, it’s messy. Hopefully, an increase in narratives like this will work to make this disorder less taboo and illustrate the prevalence of its effects on our culture.

Finally, Perfect spreads the same message I think we should all keep in mind – that eating disorders don’t only affect the people who “look like it.” They can also be wreaking havoc in the life of that quiet girl of average weight sitting in the corner of the cafeteria that never gets noticed.

Twelve is actually a sequel to the book Eleven (bien sur) which introduces us to Winifred “Winnie” Perry, your typical suburban American pre-teenager. Winnie is fairly average: she’s pretty, not wildly intelligent, but smart enough to do well in school (though the academic aspect of her life is barely mentioned). She is, however, incredibly insightful and self-aware for a 12 year old. She analyzes her relationships with her various friends, her family, and her body like a pro, although sometimes she is extremely embarrassed by all three. You can also tell that despite the embarrassment factor, Winnie truly loves and enjoys her family. Her parents are down-to-earth and supportive, and her equally self-aware older sister Sandra is a teen, yes, but a good role model for Winnie. Who, in turn, is a wonderful big sister to 6 year old Ty. She even lets him try on her bras!

From Winnie’s narration at the beginning of the book, if we haven’t read Eleven (and we didn’t), we can assume that during the past year, her best friend, Amanda, has jilted her for the more popular, fashion and girly Gail. Through this social turmoil Winnie struck up a friendship with Dinah, who seems less mature and more fragile than Amanda, but is kinder and a more devoted friend to Winnie. During the course of Twelve, Winnie develops breasts, graduates from sixth grade, gets her ears pierced, attends sleepover summer camp, goes skinny-dipping, starts her period, learns to use tampons, enters the world of junior high school and *gasp* meets a guy! Changing personalities, evolving friendships, developing bodies, and how to be a good person while worrying what the world thinks of you all figure prominently in this novel, as they do in most lives at that age. Sometimes I thought “This is Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret for the digital native age!” but it’s sweet and funny in its own right. Looking back at my own life at that age, (and the sometime trauma it caused me), I was at times very touched by Winnie’s successes, failures and commentary. For a reader who is the same age as Winnie, her experiences will also serve to normalize the sometimes difficult, humiliating, and joyous process of growing up for tweens.

The flow of the book takes the reader from Winnie’s twelfth to thirteenth birthdays. Since Winnie’s birthday is in March, the natural storyline of the book goes from the end of one year of school through the summer and up until the spring of the next year at school. The story itself is not quite a story, it’s more of an internal monologue that can jump hours or days at a time, analyzing all the new life experiences that Winnie’s 12th year has brought her. The novel seems like it’s more of a stream of consciousness or a bulleted list of events than an actual plot.

The setting also tends to change quite a bit and so do the people. There are a lot of characters in this novel, some of which are permanent, some fleeting, some are prevalent in some chapters  of her life (harhar) and completely absent in others. A few provide interesting information about Winnie as a character, but most just seem to be window dressing for the scene. For instance, Winnie meets a whole cabin of girls at Camp Winding Gap, but we as readers hardly ever get to know them and they disappear with in the span of a few pages.  While reading, I was put-off by this laundry list of places and people, each with their own little crisis or situation. When were any of these things going to become really consequential? Amanda, Winnie’s former best friend, returns for a summer of friendship at camp, then all but disappears when Winnie starts school in the fall, only to re-emerge as a goth in the sequel, Thirteen (shhhh!). Except for perfunctory comparisons to Dinah, Amanda is essentially dead to us as readers. Meanwhile, she’s seamlessly replaced by a girl named Cinnamon, who then becomes a friend-fixture in the rest of the novel and the sequel. Perhaps my initially adverse reaction was personal: I like follow-up. I like plot. But, looking back on my own years, I realized that perhaps this is how the book mimics life. The year that bridges elementary and middle or junior high school is one of changing peer groups, schools, and general upheaval. People come and go, we’re introduced to new characters every day, and while there might be story arcs like camp, finding partners, school… it’s just illustrative of a time of great change in our lives. A staggering work of literary genius, perhaps it’s not. But it is a lovely alternative recommendation for the pre-gossip girl in your life.

Girl (one Bella Swan) moves away from her emotionally needy, child-like, yet perceptive mother in sunny Arizona to live with her quiet, introverted father, Charlie, who lives in the Pacific Northwest. The weather is terrible, she hates it. Blah, blah, blah. I felt as though Meyer goes through a lot of trouble to really drive home how “normal” Bella is. “Hey, look, kids! She’s a REAL LIVE TEENAGER TYPE PERSON!” The beginning of the novel is made up of many excruciating pages of text in which Meyer painstakingly enumerates the minutiae of Bella’s everyday existence. Her sweatpants. Her intellect. Her insecurities. Her food preferences. Her quiet, awkward -yet-loving relationship with Charlie. Her inability to accept presents (???). Her clumsiness. We get it, Steph, “Bella” is spelled B-O-R-I-N-G. Or it was, until …

She begins school and notices a group of beautiful teenagers, the Cullens, who don’t eat and keep to themselves. One of them, Edward, appears not to be able to stand her. This DEVASTATES her. Why? The reader isn’t sure. She’s used to being a relative outcast, but she seems generally well-accepted in this new school. She’s smart, she’s capable (physical prowess notwithstanding), she’s pretty. But we get it, rejection from hot guys is hard. Fact of teen life, right?

Edward disappears for quite awhile from school and when he comes back he suddenly takes a special interest in Bella – giving her rides to school, questioning her incessantly, etc. He even saves her miraculously from potential physical harm during an out-of-town shopping trip (rape is generally implied, later confirmed) after which he takes the stunned Bella to a very expensive Italian restaurant. It’s all very mysterious and romantic. Then, during a weekend trip to the local Native American reservation, her old friend Jacob Black (remember that name, ladies and gentlemen) tells her about the Quileute (Jacob’s tribe) legends regarding “the cold ones,” and their antagonistic relationship with the Quileutes’ wolf-spirit forefathers. She puts two and two together and then: OMG, you guys, Edward Cullen is totes a vampire, amirite?!?

It turns out there isn’t just ONE vampire there’s seven. The Cullen family consists of Carlisle, Esmé, Rosalie, Edward, Emmett, Jasper, and Alice. The Cullens have a unique world view from most vampires – they’re “vegetarians,” meaning they only feed on animal blood, even though it’s generally a poor substitute for human blood. Subsequently, Meyer goes about deconstructing all of the old vampire legends: destroyed by sunlight, silver bullets, and stakes through the heart. Basically anything that makes it more difficult for this romance to be a reality. In fact, she incorporates attributes to her breed of vamp that makes them even more sexy! Their beauty, for one thing: they’re just so brilliantly beautiful that they can’t go out during the day because then everyone would KNOW something was wrong. But that’s not all, folks! Some vampires have special “talents,” and it just so happens that the Cullen family has three such vampires: Edward can read minds (except Bella’s), Jasper can influence moods, and Alice can read futures based on decisions as they are made. So they are breathtakingly beautiful, harmless vampires that have a stable home life, supportive vampire role-models, not to mention extraordinary talents, (even for a vampire). Oh, and did I mention they’re pretty? Because they are.

So girl meets vampire. Vampire meets girl. They are in so. Much. Love. They kiss, he spends the night in her bed watching her sleep, he straps her on his back and takes her on runs through the countryside. It’s awesome. She’s generally accepted as part of the family and everything is great UNTIL:

They’re playing baseball (the great American pass-time, why not?) and suddenly Alice sees another coven of vampires coming towards them. They see Bella, normal human teenager girl hanging out with a bunch of vampires, and all hell breaks loose. One of them, James, tracks Bella, despite her best efforts, to her childhood home in Arizona. For a minute it looks like Bella’s going to bite it (oh, pun intended) but of course Edward saves the day just in time. Hooray! So Bella’s got a broken leg but also a boyyyyfriend. The End. Of Book 1.