Running Scared. (series: Cap Central, book 2)

McGill, Leslie.  Running Scared. (series: Cap Central, book 2)  Saddleback  2014    141p  $9.95 ISBN 978-1-62250-706-1  ms/hs Realistic fiction, Hi-lo    VG     

Cap Central High School is a typical inner-city high school.  In the second in the series about Cap Central students, Rainie decides not eating will make her lose weight quickly and make her less desirable to her mother’s boyfriend.  No overt sexual content appears, just the sense of uneasiness and inappropriate comments made by the man to Rainie.  She is a talented student whose grades begin to suffer as she finds any excuse to stay away from home, from working long hours at the yogurt shop to going running to burn off any calories she may have consumed from her meager meals.  Her friends are aware that she is changing, as her appearance deteriorates, she dresses in multiple layers to hide her thinness, and her grades plummet because she has no place nor time to study.  

The hi/lo appeal for those struggling with reading is that the topic is timely and believable.  Once a reader completes this book, he or she can continue reading others in the series that focus on other students, male and female, at Cap High.  Characters overlap from one book to the next, leading the reader to become familiar with many different characters and the difficulties they face while trying to get an education in a sometimes violent environment.     The problems faced by the students are believable and of interest to teenagers.      

Summary: Rainie has been losing weight, hoping to derail the interest being paid to her by her mother’s boyfriend.  Friends take the lead in making her confront her problems at home as well as with her weight. Hi/lo fiction about inner-city high-school life. Gr. 8-12. 

High-school life-Fiction, Anorexia-Fiction                  --Lois McNicol

Paint Me A Monster

Baskin, Janie.  Paint Me A Monster.  Enslow     2014  352p  $18.95  ISBN 978-1-62324-018-9  hs  Historical fiction  VG-BN

Belonging to a seemingly picture-perfect family, Rinnie (nicknamed after the dog Rin Tin Tin in the movies) has always been the odd one out. She asks awkward questions, blurts out family secrets at inopportune times, and always seems to be the family scapegoat. Her family punishes her by yelling at her, ignoring her, and sending her away to camp. Neglected and unloved, Rinnie punishes herself by restricting her diet until she is skeletal (the family's skeleton in the closet?).

The reader will immediately understand that while Rinnie appears to be an average child of an upper middle-class family, she is an outcast.  She makes mistakes common to childhood (but uncommon in her family, where appearances take precedence over substance).  As a very young child, Rinnie stole a small charm from the department store.  She told the rabbi who came for dinner about the family's Christmas tree.  She doesn't enjoy summer camp or shopping for clothes.  Rinnie just doesn't fit in.

Rinnie tries to reinvent herself in order to receive the love and attention she craves.  She renames herself Rinnie, for the dog Rin Tin Tin, who is loved by all and is the symbol of universal approval.  Rinnie (whose true name eventually is completely forgotten by everyone who knows her) climbs the slippery slope of popularity, eventually becoming a cheerleader (generally the pinnacle of teen society).  But it is to no avail.  Rinnie's parents divorce.  Her father takes her brother with him to become part of his new happy family, and she and her sister are left to cope with their mother, who is on a downward spiral of alcoholism, mental illness, and messy relationships with a series of men and marriages. Her sister escapes through schoolwork and trips abroad.  She knows how dreadful her mother has become, and yet she abandons her younger sibling to save herself.

Rinnie and her mother clash.  Rinnie is helpless to save her mother from self-destruction and desperate to win any sign of approval from the parent left to her.  As her mother sinks further and further into depression, she lashes out with increasing viciousness at Rinnie.  In an era when mental illness went largely untreated and was politely ignored, Rinnie becomes the caretaker of the person who should be taking care of her.  Held to impossible standards, Rinnie retreats into anorexia.  No one in her family circle seems to notice as Rinnie turns into a walking skeleton.

With the help of a school guidance counselor, Rinnie develops a support system and is gently drawn back from the brink of self-destruction. The road to complete recovery will be long, but Rinnie is armed with acute self-perception, and the reader comes away from the novel with the feeling that hers will be a successful journey.

Summary: With the help of the school guidance counselor, Rinnie comes to terms with her dysfunctional family relationships and her battle with eating disorders. 

                 

Anorexia-Fiction, Divorce-Fiction               --Hilary Welliver