Author: Meg Haston


Friday, September 25, 2015

Audiobook Review: Paperweight by Meg Haston

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I received this book for free from HarperTeen in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Audiobook Review: Paperweight by Meg HastonPaperweight by Meg Haston
Published by HarperCollins on July 7th 2015
Genres: Contemporary, YA
Source: HarperTeen
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four-stars

Seventeen-year-old Stevie is trapped. In her life. And now in an eating-disorder treatment center on the dusty outskirts of the New Mexico desert.

Life in the center is regimented and intrusive, a nightmare come true. Nurses and therapists watch Stevie at mealtime, accompany her to the bathroom, and challenge her to eat the foods she’s worked so hard to avoid.

Her dad has signed her up for sixty days of treatment. But what no one knows is that Stevie doesn't plan to stay that long. There are only twenty-seven days until the anniversary of her brother Josh’s death—the death she caused. And if Stevie gets her way, there are only twenty-seven days until she too will end her life.

I really enjoyed this book as much as you can enjoy something about such a topic. I listened to this on audio and at first I was having a hard time getting into it, but the longer I listened, the more the narrator really did fit with the story. She voiced Stevie so well, that I was able to really feel for her and get that emotional impact from the book. Although this book appears to be about a girl with an eating disorder, it was really so much more. This is one of those rare instances when I really don’t like the MC, at least at for most of the book, but it actually made me like the book more.

Stevie is sent away to a treatment center for her eating disorder. An eating disorder that she tries so hard to categorize and needs to fit the type she wants. She needs to be smaller. She needs to be strong. She feels like she can’t fail. She is also working towards ending it all on the anniversary of her brother dying. She blames herself. She isn’t a very easy person to like, but it really made her story so much more real. It wasn’t sugar coated or skimmed over. She is rude, stubborn, but also very sick. She’s angry at life. Being in her head, especially being voiced as an audiobook, was brutally honest and heartbreaking.

What I loved about this book was that it doesn’t just tackle the eating disorders, but the reason. The deeper reason that has led them to these disorders. What life event or events has shaped how they feel and perceive not only themselves, but everything. This was a pretty honest book. Yes, it did have some lighter parts, but it really dives deep into the topics of mental illness and how it affects everyone involved. I didn’t really like Stevie, but I felt for her. I wanted so much for her to see all the ways she was wrong. To help her see that she was great the way that she was. It was so heartbreaking to get to know not only her, but the other girls and their stories. How they truly felt as opposed to how things really are. This was a hard book to listen too, but also so amazing in it’s honesty.

four-stars

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