427 reviews for:

The Art of Starving

Sam J. Miller

3.6 AVERAGE

plantingmindelia's review against another edition

2.5

dark emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

samm_yy's review

4.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

honeylemondrop's review

4.0

---

While this book may be triggering to some and some may argue that it even glamorizes eating disorders—to which I disagree with—I enjoyed this book. The feelings he had were raw and relatable to things that I’ve experienced. The glamor perceived comes from the character’s own delusion about himself and you can tell every step of the way that the process is hurting him, it’s not glamorous—his fingernails are bloodied and gross. By the end we learn just how much damage it did to himself. This book is a great example of how you can’t trust a biased narrator and therefore must read between the lines. What I really loved was that he felt like he was very self aware of himself before realizing some of his selfishness and biases. I read a complaint that said his recovery process was not detailed enough, but I think if it had been more detailed it would just repeat the same messages. The point was that it was a difficult conscious effort for him to get better. His interactions with the other boys in his school—both with those he loved and hated were so meaningful and pointed out the pressures put on boys to fit into the box of masculinity. Although most of the time we were just in Matt’s head.

jay_b234's review

4.5

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

jeyanlri's review

1.0

---

this book honestly seemed like it was romanticizing the issues addressed (1 star; did not like)

also the side characters were all so flat and 2-dimensional

lenamay34's review against another edition

3.0

dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

andromedaskye_19's review

4.0

---

Four bittersweet starts for a powerful, raw, magnetic book.

readingwithpugs's review

4.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

dietcokealp's review

2.0

---

This one did not do much for me. Sometimes when I read YA I think authors try too hard to cram so many teen issues into one book. This book is one that I would say went that route.

stguac's review

2.0

---

my overall takeaway from this is that i just think im too old for YA. initially i thought the art of starving had an interesting and refreshing main character and plot: a young gay boy fighting an eating disorder while looking for his missing sister. the more i read it the more i started to sort of feel uneasy about the writing, however. i wasnt really crazy about any of the characters because they felt a little inconsistent and flat. the main character, matt, was sort of fun to follow around. i quite liked the journal entry framing of the narrative too. matt was really self serious in a way that i remember myself being when i was that age. it just wasnt that fun for me to read.

i also really, really loathed the supernatural element of it. i wasnt fully sure what was going on with his weirdly undefined psychic abilities until i got to one of the final scenes in the book that confirmed that starving himself indeed gave him superpowers. if youve never had an eating disorder this seems harmless but i really couldnt believe what i was reading. so many people with EDs feel like their disorders do in fact make them better than others on some level; thats what the disease can do. and thats a little alarming! i dont really feel like preaching to people about why framing your protagonists psychic powers as actually being literally real as a result of their ED is troublesome.

however, i do get the point of doing so. yes theyre powers but they also require matt to hurt himself and everyone in his life. he wants to find his sister but his mother doesnt seem too alarmed with her disappearance. in fact, no one does. he gets with his love interest rather early on in the story but matt feels insecure in the relationship because his boyfriend doesnt seem willing to be out. matt feels completely out of control. using his powers helps him get what he wants, but it also isolates him from those who love him. i think the story wouldve been more powerful had the powers actually just been matt learning to have more confidence in himself.