This Impossible Light

Starred review from April 10, 2017
In an exceptional novel in verse, slam poet Myers debuts with a powerful commentary on maternal inheritance and eating disorders. Ivy, a high school sophomore, is a self-described smart girl who “understands that/ discipline is success.” Since her parents’ divorce and her mother’s subsequent withdrawal into herself (“More far-off stares./ More wine./ More silence”), Ivy finds comfort in assuming control where she can, such as in math: “Numbers keep their promises.” When Ivy’s need for control moves outside the classroom, she begins to severely limit her food intake and to exercise excessively. As Ivy’s obsession grows and her body begins to fail, she is forced confront her familial issues and harmful choices in order to begin her journey back to physical and mental health. Myers makes striking use of the flexibility of free verse to communicate Ivy’s emotions and eventual loss of control. Ivy’s relationship with her mother and her understanding of what she has inherited from her— “the unspoken lessons/ that worm their way under my skin/ the things I wish I could unlearn”—are particularly absorbing and evocative. Ages 12–up. Agent: Erin Murphy, Erin Murphy Literary.

April 15, 2017
Her life in upheaval, Ivy finds solace in controlling her caloric intake. Ivy's once-close family, all white, is coming apart. Her dad has a girlfriend, and her brother has also moved out. Now it's just Ivy and her mother at home. But her mother is progressively disappearing into depression. So when her sophomore year starts, Ivy can't wait to see her white best friend, Anna, who has just returned from Europe. But now Anna has a new best friend and a new beer pong pastime. Ivy is a "Smart Girl." She adores math and trusts numbers for their constancy. She enters an arithmetic competition, but the weight of grief and loneliness sends her careening into obsessiveness. Ivy begins using numbers to control her life, viewing her growing eating disorder as an equation: "My body / is a function. / And I know / that the lower my x is / the less I put inside of me / the better / my output / will be." The distinct quality of this topical novel is Ivy's voice and composition. Written in evocative verse, with notes of wonder and despair, the cadence flows across and down the pages with grace: "I never knew silence / could take up a whole room: / sitting on all the chairs, / climbing up the stairway, / thick in the air like fog." Lifted beyond the confines of the problem novel with its lyricism and resonance. (Verse/fiction. 12-16)

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May 1, 2017

Gr 7 Up-This debut by the "Shrinking Women" slam poet is an emotional novel in verse about eating disorders. Ivy is a smart girl. She studies, she doesn't party, and she is a good friend and daughter. But when Ivy's personal world is thrown into upheaval (divorce, distant family, a best friend who has moved on), she seeks control in all aspects of her life, including over her expanding body. She struggles with anorexia and bulimia while also disturbingly slipping out of the attention of every adult in her life. Ivy eventually alienates everyone and then, after a significant health scare, works her way toward healing her mind and body. The strength of this title is the writing-Myers's verses are incisive and gut-wrenching as she realistically depicts the pressure and expectations facing teenage girls. There are many passages that readers will underline or share on social media. Ivy's inner narrative also accurately represents how body dysmorphia can warp relationships and previously held goals. However, the story is often didactic, the secondary characters are flat, and Ivy's tale is a predictable arc that ends too neatly. VERDICT Despite the unevenness of the book, the undeniable teen appeal makes it a first purchase for any YA collection.-Susannah Goldstein, Bronx School for Law, Government, and Justice, NY

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2017
Grades 8-11 Slam poet Myers serves up a poignant portrait of one tenth-grader's struggle with disordered eating. For Ivy Lewis, numbers have always kept their promises. However, after her parents split, her brother leaves for college, and her best friend returns from a summer in Paris irrevocably changed, numbers become the enemy. Ivy's grown two inches and gained x pounds, and she'll cut y calories to balance the rapidly fraying equation. But Ivy's battle with her body is vicious, and healing may mean confronting not only her own open wounds but also her mother's. Teens will identify with Ivy, a girl grappling with her growing body and the stifling pressures of a societyand selfdemanding nothing short of perfection. Myers' succinct (often no longer than a page) poems, sprawling into surprising shapes and strategically set against ample white space, nimbly underscore questions of emptiness and control, fluctuation and resilience. More than a touching debut, this is a surefire coping companion, too.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)