You Remind Me of You

March 4, 2002
Corrigan, now in her 20s, recounts her experiences as a teenager with an eating disorder in a series of poems distinguished more by the shock value of their contents than by their insight or literary merit. Along with the graphic details of the adolescent Corrigan's secret stockpiles of sealed plastic bags containing her regurgitated meals and her ruses in feigning weight gain, topics include her high school boyfriend Daniel, who shoots himself between the eyes—only to have the bullet ricochet out of an eye socket, leaving him alive and, eventually, able to function. Corrigan, still severely anorexic, is with another boyfriend, Ben, when the suicide attempt takes place, but she rushes to Daniel's bedside, aids in his slow recovery and realizes she wants to recover, too. (At some point Ben fatally drives his car into a tree.) Frequent attempts at irony don't deflect from the writer's absorption in her symptoms. Various incidents are rehashed repeatedly, even aggrandized (e.g., comparisons of herself and Daniel to Orpheus and Eurydice), but more fundamental narrative questions receive little attention: why, after all, do these individuals suffer in these particular ways? Corrigan acknowledges that her illness includes elements of competitiveness (as an inpatient, she and her fellows envy the clavicle of a particularly skeletal girl) and exhibitionism ("I wore sleeveless dresses/ even with scars on my wrists"); both these elements seem fully exploited here. Ages 13-up.

August 1, 2002
Gr 9 Up-In this eloquent and moving poetic memoir, Corrigan recounts her descent into anorexia. In and out of hospitals and treatment facilities for several years, she was unconvinced that her life was worth sustaining despite the frantic efforts of her family and boyfriend. She hid her vomit in plastic bags and buried them in the yard, and took dramatic measures to falsify her progress during weigh-ins. Corrigan was dancing with oneboyfriend when another one unsuccessfully attempted suicide and when she read the newspaper detailing the event, she rushed to Daniel's bedside. She then bargained for his life-she would eat if he would live, and he did. Their slow recoveries parallel their growing deep love for one another, and they clung to one another for support, and comfort, and in sexual intimacy. The author's prose poetry is interspersed with interviews between herself and an unnamed therapist. The unusual and effective format sharpens each word, making readers savor and thoughtfully examine each poetic piece. They will also have to hold each puzzlelike entry into open space before judging which piece describes which point in time, given the loose, nonlinear framework. Overall, this book strongly complements the many fiction and nonfiction works on the topic.-Susan Riley, Mount Kisco Public Library, NY

Copyright 2002 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.