Mercy, Unbound

April 24, 2006
Antieau's (Coyote Cowgirl
, for adults) rather cumbersome first young-adult novel centers on a 15-year-old suffering an eating disorder who believes she is becoming an angel. Though Mercy confesses that she is hungry, she insists that if she eats, "I'll lose my wings." The narrative chronicles her interactions with others—her high-strung environmental lawyer mother, her calm professor-of-literature father and her fellow patients at a treatment center for eating disorders ("My mother does not see the irony of taking me to a hospital called Mercywood"). The narrative reveals the lingering effects of Mercy's losses: her younger brother was stillborn, her dog died and her beloved grandmother (who nearly starved in a Nazi concentration camp) moved away. After the two latter events, Mercy confides to her new friends at Mercywood that she did have an eating disorder "but it went away." She also shares with them the dream that first made her realize that she is an angel. After watching a news report about AIDS orphans in Africa, she dreamed that she was leaning over a dying person, "my wings stretched out like an umbrella over the two of us, and I was whispering—bestowing compassion and mercy in a world that really needs it." Although the writing can be lyrical, readers may feel that the moral ultimately drives the story. Unlike the more realistic Skin
(reviewed above), this novel overlays a heavy (albeit uplifting) message that masks the moments of true connection—between Mercy and her parents, and Mercy and her peers. Ages 14-up.

June 1, 2006
Gr 8-10 -Mercy, 15, believes that she is growing wings and becoming an angel. According to her, these celestial beings are not human and therefore they do not have to eat. The teen does not understand why her parents insist on getting her treatment for an eating disorder that she obviously does not have. She -s an angel, not a girl. Forced to attend a treatment center in New Mexico, she meets others who have eating disorders of varying severity. Mercy sees the similarity in their habits but still stays true to her convictions. Then she sees her friends getting sick and notices that her wings are not growing, and she begins to question what is really going on. A tragic event leaves her confused and with a loss of memory. The text alternates between Mercy -s thoughts in italics and her first-person narrative of the events as they unfold in bold. Mercy -s belief that she is an angel taps into the delusional thinking that often accompanies such disorders. This novel takes a common topic in young adult fiction and adds atypical characteristics. It will appeal to a wide range of young women." -Kristen M. Todd, Middle Country Public Library, Centereach, NY"

Copyright 2006 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2006
Gr. 9-12. Funny and painfully honest, this debut YA novel by the author of several adult books tells the teenage anorexia story from the viewpoint of Mercy, 15, who denies she has an eating disorder until she is sent to a treatment center in New Mexico. Like her loving mom, Mercy is a strident atheist who wants to save the world, and she feels the political burden of starvation, both past (her Jewish grandmother survived Auschwitz; many in her dad's Irish family perished during the potato famine) and present (the suffering of AIDS orphans). The plot lurches at the end, the political stuff is sometimes heavy, and Mercy's wildly misleading comment to her counselor--if she and the other patients "had been born black in South Africa, [we] would most likely have AIDS"--is never challenged or corrected in context. Still, many readers will want this for the family story and for the teen talk, which is fast, frank, and irreverent.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)