Reviews

Kim: Empty Inside: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager by Beatrice Sparks

kaylacanning13's review

5.0

Such a great short read. Truly makes you think and puts you in the shoes of another.

ariatari's review

1.0

God this book is awful. A completely unrealistic and very stereotypical account of someone with an ED, and this is coming from someone who had one. I can't really say anything else other than that I regret the day I spent reading this. Awful.

liralen's review

2.0

The trouble with books by (or edited by) Beatrice Sparks is that I'm never sure how much is actual diary and how much is fiction. Either way, the basic story rings fairly true (especially when compared to, say, The Best Little Girl in the World!), if overly simplistic.

It's a quick read, and certainly not an unreasonable one, although I do get very tired of characters whose problems are solved by a loving boyfriend.

librariann's review

Another alleged "True Diary" - this one of a girl who suffers from anorexia & bulimia.

desiloubookroom's review

3.0

Pretty good story. Not as suspenseful as the other "found diaries" so it seemed pretty slow to me. I still plan on reading the rest though.

sara_has_no_h's review

challenging dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

jmilberg's review

emotional reflective fast-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

jessdance34's review

1.0

I have read numerous books about eating disorders and eating disorder recovery. What I have found is that there are two different categories of books: the ones that are realistic and show the sudden fall into the disorder and the hard climb out of it and many of them never quite fully recover from, and the ones that show the behavior strongly suddenly and then are magically fine at the end of the book; in other words, the realistic ones and the unrealistic ones. This one falls in the latter. Seriously, I do not believe that this book is realistic at all!!! The book does not show the struggle of the recovery and the actual despair that comes with having an eating disorder. Not only that, but at the end of the book, when she realizes that she does have a disorder, she goes back to her life as if nothing is wrong and everything goes back to normal, uhhhh what!? Yeah, big waste of an evening reading this crap!

xeni's review

1.0

Books like this just made me more depressed... the never helped me to figure out who I am, or how I can not be like this anonymous teenager!

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that they ought not to be published, but it's pretty close to that. They make a lot of situations worse, and not better. That's how it was for me with most of these books, and the people that I saw read them too. Anonymous diaries don't help teens... they just show them how to be unstable better.

erinthevampireslayer's review

1.0

This is one of the 'Go Ask Alice’ anonymous journal series books, so if you've read "Go Ask Alice", "Lucy in the Sky", etc. then you know that these are cautionary tale young adult 'journals' that focus on an issue that ruins teen lives. I read the more recent "Letting Ana Go" book that followed this format and focused on anorexia and liked it. This one is still eating disorder based but older and focuses more on bulimia. Unfortunately, this is by far the absolute worst book in this series. The writing is so low quality in terms of basic sentence structure, everything is rushed, no character is likable, and the entire book is just a wreck. If you're looking for a young adult book that deals with bulimia, I would recommend looking for a different book on this list: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/bulimia