Miss You Love You Hate You Bye

December 15, 2019
The quiet half of two best friends grapples with growing apart in the wake of her BFF's eating disorder. Hank (Hannah) is dedicated to the electric glow of Zoe, her firecracker bestie. Where Zoe has star quality (and the resume to prove it), Hank is a dedicated audience. It's a symbiotic relationship that gives Zoe the comfort of constant adoration (perfect for a social media junkie) and Hank constant backstage access (great for a girl with "mud-brown hair" and a one-friend focus). The loyalty devolves to something less healthy when Zoe's eating disorder goes unchecked by fully aware Hank. But when a hero has shortcomings, speaking up doesn't happen as easily as trying to avoid a betrayal. Told from Hank's articulate, insightful, and pretty funny perspective, the chapters are punctuated by journal entries from Zoe (brief, chuckleworthy musings on recovery and double-crosses written from rehab). Both girls have tricky home lives (Hank is nervous her mom's boyfriend will dissolve everyone's memory of her dead dad; Zoe's cheating father is divorcing her mother, who is more interested in Pilates and lamenting lost youth than parenting). Though Hank doesn't see herself as captivating as Zoe, she doesn't delve into pitiful self-deprecation (she knows she's smart, loyal, and a talented musician)--a narrative choice that makes her eventual confrontation of Zoe believable. All main characters are white; Hank and her mother are Ashkenazi Jews. Here's how to speak up even if it hurts. (Fiction. 14-18)

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February 15, 2020
Grades 10-1 Hank (Hannah) has been Zoe's best friend since forever, but the letter opening this novel from Zoe to Hank tells a different story: Zoe is in a rehabilitation center and blames Hank for getting her put there. Hank, who narrates the story in first person, has been Zoe's rock, always reliable and always supportive. But after a summer apart, Hank can see that Zoe weighs almost nothing and has marks on her arms that she attributes to her new kitten. Hank is unsuccessful in her attempts to talk reasonably with Zoe and continues to enable her until Zoe goes too far, and Hank, fed up, sets up an intervention. Hank's thoughtful, solid, and often poignant narrative is interspersed with Zoe's angry letters to Hank, which eventually start to soften. Hank, meanwhile, gradually begins to establish some healthy boundaries and grows to recognize the difference between friendship and codependency. The unbalanced friendship will resonate with readers, many of whom might recognize the toxicity of the dynamic. Through Hank's story, Sher shows a way out of damaging friendships.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)