A slightly overweight student deals with a treacherous slide into bitterness. All of Emily's friends seem so perfect. They're skinny and pretty, and, of course, are fun and flirty to boot. Especially Leah, who, as Emily remembers it, used to be the chubby girl in school. Now Leah is on her way toward becoming America's next top model. Literally. Why can't I look like her? Emily loathes her slightly overweight body, her insecure personality, and sometimes even her "perfect" friends. As Leah and Becca, another gorgeous friend, discuss the latest fashion trends and "magical thigh-reducing creams," Emily's secret bitterness begins to eat away at her soul. Emily takes drastic measures putting herself in danger of death, which she will only avoid if she comes to terms with the issues weighing down her heavy heart.
Melody Carlson is the award-winning author of over two hundred books, several of them Christmas novellas from Revell, including her much-loved and bestselling book, The Christmas Bus.
She also writes many teen books, including the Diary of a Teenage Girl series, the TrueColors series, and the Carter House Girls series.
Melody was nominated for a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award in the inspirational market for her books, including the Notes from a Spinning Planet series and Finding Alice, which is in production as a Lifetime Television movie. She and her husband serve on the Young Life adult committee in central Oregon.
I started to enjoy this and then it got extremely after school special and religious. Honestly, the end is so sweet I couldn't stand it. You can't just stop having an eating disorder and you can't just turn it on or off.
I was given this book as a birthday present a couple weeks ago, and I read the summary on the back, and I have to admit, it sounded quite interesting and was looking forward to reading it.
This novel deals with eating disorders, dieting and body image, and that is some very serious stuff, but this book was the total opposite of serious.
This book was so cheesy it made me cringe. I kept thinking to myself that maybe, just maybe, it would get better--but I was not surprised with the disappointing outcome.
One of the main things that really annoyed me about this book was how overly religious it was. I will admit, I am a very religious person, but Emily Foster, the main character is unrealistically religious. I kid you not, almost every time Emily did anything, even breathe, she prayed. It was so ridiculous that I found myself rolling my eyes numerous times.
That was not the only fault I had with this book. Emily overcame her eating disorder so quickly, it was so hard to believe this story. Eating disorders don't just come and go. You can't just wake up and say "Ta-da! I'm not anorexic/bulimic anymore." Emily's mental and physical battles were barely talked about thoroughly, something which should have been included.
The only semi-good thing about this book was Leah and Emily's friendship. Leah, Emily's best friend, tried to give her advice on losing weight the healthy way, by telling her to eat healthy and exercise regularly. Leah and Emily had each others backs and motivated Emily when she was feeling down.
Other than that, this book was a joke to people who are diagnosed or suffering from body image issues. I would recommend this to no one.
My favorite one in the series I think. This girl thinks she is fat. and she becomes anorexic/bulimic, and gets seriously sick. But then after going to a camp to be a worship leader for "special" kids, she realizes how blessed she is, and realized that every one has something to offer and that God loves her no matter what.
Why does this author always make Christianity sound like a cult? This is getting ridiculous. Also, her depiction of an eating disorder was too rushed and not very realistic. I couldn't connect with the characters, the narrative was bad, the dialogue was bad, the whole thing was just bad. I don't recommend anyone read this book.
I kept waiting for this book to get better, but it didn't. The author has no idea about eating disorders and presents them in a way that is not only ignorant but dangerous. Eating disorders don't just go away with prayer. This was one of the worst books I have ever read. I wish I could give zero stars.
I really liked this book. I've loved the entire series so far, and I find that these books are really relatable. The characters in these books go through tough events and trials that we face today, but because they are Christians, they often think about or look at it in a different way than we usually would. I liked how the girl's name in this book was Emily, because I'm an Emily and have gone through pretty much the same thing. I really think that this is an important issue that should be addressed in today's society and this book did it perfectly. Overall, the writing was great; I honestly enjoy how short these books are, just because I can finish them quicker. Normally I feel that with short books, the plot doesn't develop as much, but with these books, it's a completely different idea. Melody Carlson knows how to write good stories that are a little bit shorter than most, but she also knows how to bring it full circle; finish the entire story in only 200 pages.
One of the best books I've ever read. It accualy made me not want to eat for a while there. i read it when i want to be well "skinny" one of my favorite books.
This thing changed my life in a bad way. This "book" had a big part to play in me developing anorexia. I wish that this whole series would stop being printed.
I give this book a 3/5* because it was a good story and it had good character development.
This story is about a teenager named Emily and her best friend Leah. Emily is jealous of Leah because Leah is tall, skinny and pretty and Emily is overweight. Emily used to be the skinny one and Leah the overweight one until a few years ago when they switched bodies, it seemed.
Leah tries to tell Emily how she can lose weight and take better care of her body, but the ways that Leah recommend to her (eating fruits and veggies, drinking tons of water and exercising) seem to take too long for Emily to lose any weight. Emily gets frustrated and during a trip to Chicago with Leah to attend a 2-week modeling school class, she meets some other girls who give her tips on losing weight fast.
Before you know it, Emily has turned into an anorexic. People start to notice and become concerned for her but Emily denies it and tells herself that she is fine. That she can control it and go back to eating "more" once she reaches her ideal weight.
This book deals a lot with God and prayer and it gives the message that all you need is to let God into your life and pray and allow God to direct your life and everything will fall into place.
If you don't care for books that involve God or religion then I wouldn't read this book.
The plot of the story was really good and the character development was also really good. Especially the development of Emily and Leah, the two main characters. Although at times I thought Emily was a brat and was shallow and selfish...she always seemed to come around.
This is one of the books in the "True Colors" series. These books cover serious topics concerning teenagers.
This is probably my favorite of the series. It is about a girl who struggles with an eating disorder. For most of her life, she had always been relatively thin and attracitve, and her bff had been slightly on the larger side. but when they enter high school, things change and are reversed. after seeing her friend look so pretty and thin and getting a modeling contract, the main character feels terrible about herself and develops an eating disroder that nearly threatens her life. But, with helpful advice and God on her side, she can change her life back again!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Fat, fat, fat. That’s all 16-year-old Emily sees when she looks in the mirror. And it doesn’t help that her best friend, Leah, is looking better than ever. Emily has to make some difficult decision about her weight while Leah also faces tough choices about her appearance. Faded denim is one in a series called color me trapped by Melody Carlson. This is Christian fiction for teens and I found it a bit overtly preachy.
Great book, Definitely a teen read for girls who are struggling with eating disorders. For girls who think they are fat or have many skinny friends, but mainly teen girls who think they should start binging or are becoming anorexic or bolemic. Book teaches girls to love who they are with the help of parents, friends, and God, shows girls how harmful eating disorders are, and teaches them that with the right amount of exercise and healthy eating decisions, they will have the figure they want.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I felt that this book perpetuated some really inaccurate views about eating disorders, making them seem like something you pick up to lose weight for summer and then can just get over on your own if you pray enough. Not impressed.
Issue: Body image Sub-issue: Eating disorders (Content warning); Parental pressure; Fashion world pressures
Emily is finishing her junior year with her best friend Leah. In comparison to Leah, Emily feels shorter and heavier. When Leah needs Emily's help to go to a modeling school, Emily agrees. At the school, she feels like she doesn't fit it but learns about "tips" to lose weight (not the healthy and slow way either).
After that is two weeks as a camp counselor, where she suspects that one of her charges is anorexic.... and is accused of that herself. Later that summer, she is invited to another two weeks of camp, which provides some support in overcoming the addiction of eating as little as possible and over-exercising.
Before she went to the second camp, she had a talk with her boss, who explained about how her metabolism is messed up because of the eating disorder she had. That talk resulted in Emily having resources to reach out to after camp, even if her dad, who had encouraged her weight loss, didn't understand that "at all costs weight loss" wasn't the best course of action.
The thing with this book, for me at least, is the use of religion. I fully understand that most of the books in this series are like that. But it really made the book hard for me to relate to and understand, which is partially just me. The way the author talks about it makes me feel strange in a weird way like her whole recovery is because of god, not herself. It just makes her struggle feel a bit as though it wasn't as serious as it was. That's not to say that this book wasn't phenomenal though. Firstly, the main character being at a larger BMI is so rare for a book like this. It truly makes this stand out. And the fact that they address how young girls can be when they start having problems like this is great too! I love the way Melody writes, it makes me feel like I am the character, not just reading the story Although, I am someone who is currently struggling with things like this, so that might play a part too. This book made me feel like I wasn't alone in this like I was both the main girl and her friend she was venting too. THat's so rare in books I've read Overall, this book is amazing, you should definitely try it out!
I figured either this book or the previous one would be about eating disorders. This one was. I'm not sure what to think about this book's eating disorder message. While this book is clear that the way she was losing weight was the problem I feel like some of the things said could lead readers to believe that trying to lose weight at all is bad. It felt like we were going back and forth between those kind of sentiments. I didn't expect the camp setting for parts of the book. I feel like it sometimes feels like I've read more books with camp settings in recent years, though the only ones I can think of is, There's a Bat in Bunk Five, that one book in the Christy Miller series and Summer According to Humphrey, and that last one I just remembered now. I don't think there's any content concerns, I guess just a trigger warning for eating disorders.
I'm sorry, this has to be one of the worst books I've ever read. The main character is absolutely insufferable, parts of the book read as an instruction manual for developing an eating disorder (did we really need a detailed step by step guide for someone vulnerable to follow written out and marketed to youth??), the religious themes feel stifling and disingenuous, and the huge time jumps with little explanation are wild. It does get a single star, though, for being laughably bad. At least it gave me a chuckle.
This book was okay because I felt like the book did have a lot of the same problems that other people experience in middle school and it was just not my favorite because I felt like I knew what was going to happen and it was going to be a surprise but i would recommend it to other people.
I enjoyed reading this book. I like how Melody Carlson puts real life problems into her books. In this particular book she uses body image and eating disorders as the subject.
It was a pretty good book, it opened my eyes and stuff like that. Like what I mean is that I felt like I could really relate to the character. So yeah I would encourage you to read it.
The author can tell a good story, but the overuse of "I mean..." and "sort of" got on my nerves [e.g. "She sort of..."]. The mean girls at camp should've had more character development.
Faded Denim Macy Keen February 23rd, 2017 Pre-AP English 10 - 5 Melody Carlson is writer of many book series and people describe her as a person who truly understand teen girls and what they go through. Many and almost all of Melody Carlson’s novels are directed toward teen girls or women and many of which are part of a series. The book was written in the United States in 2004. This time period was when the world was slowly changing, as it always is, but directed toward teen girls and what they go through. I think the overall theme of the book is to not worry able what the world thinks of you and don't be jealous of other people.
Emily - the main character who thinks she has a weight problem and drives herself to being anorexic Leah - one of the pretty skinny girls who Emily wishes to be like Becca - another one of Emily’s friends that she wishes to be like The overall theme of the book is to be acceptant of yourself no matter what and don’t envy others because you may think they are prettier or have their future handed to them. Emily just wants to be tall, skinny, and good looking. But instead all she sees when she looks in the mirror is fat. She think she is ugly. All her friends are skin and bones and she can’t do anything about it. She becomes anorexic and hardly eats. Her friends realize and comment on it but she never tells them what she is really doing. She comes into what could be a very deadly situation which she has really made herself sick. She has deprived her body of the nutrition it needs. She keep telling everyone she will be okay. That is until one day she was rushed to the hospital because she was conscious. After her hospital visit she made a decision that she was finished with trying to lose weight. She began to know Christ and realized that she was not able to do anything about her weight. She began to accept herself as she was and nobody could change that. God is an example of symbolism in the book. In a time of need when Emily is in the hospital due to her situation, he made her using people she admired to realize that it didn’t matter what people said about her or what she thought of herself. It’s also ironic that she described all of her friends as skinny and tall, yet she never really described herself as anything except fat.
“My best friend is so skinny” This is Emily talking about Leah which is her best friend. She think that she is overweight and is very jealous of Leah. “I’ve been saved for about five years now, long enough to have learned a thing or two about being a Christian.” This is also Emily talking about how she was saved and when she was saved. “This feels like the longest week of my life, and it’s only Wednesday.” This is Emily when she is talking about prom week and Leah going to prom and Emily not going.
Many girls worldwide struggle with accepting their body image ,causing them to take extremely dangerous choices. This is exactly the same problem that Emily is going through. Emily had always been ok with her body image until it all suddenly changed. Emily started to become more self conscious of what she looked like and even started to feel jealousy towards her best friend. Her friend used to have been somewhat overweight but now it seems to Emily that she went from being the skinny one to the overweight one and she was gonna do something about it. The way that the conflict and setting affect Emily make the story more interesting and meaningful. Emily struggles a lot with internal and external conflicts about her body image. Emily hates how she used to be fine with her body image but then suddenly she feels overweight and uncomfortable with herself. Emily started feeling jealousy toward her best friend because to Emily her friend had the perfect body form and was so confident with herself. On the other hand Emily hid under layers of clothes and was ashamed of herself. Emily definitely doesn't like how she looks and she is embarrassed of her body image which makes her feel very uncomfortable with herself. Unfortunately for Emily, not only is she struggling with her internal conflicts but also external conflicts. Even at her own house , Emily has problems with family members. With all that she already felt, her father wasn't helping very much as he constantly reminded her about her body image and that she seemed to be putting on more weight. For Emily, bringing up her self-esteem wasn't going to be easy with her dad making comments about her weight. Emily isn't getting helped by having to deal with her low self-esteem and other people's comments on her weight. She felt so ashamed of herself that she decided to do something about it and lose weight. The setting in the story changes quite a few times and being in those different places makes Emily change the way she sees herself. When Emily's friend took her to a modeling school Emily noticed that mostly all girls were very skinny. After staying there for about a week Emily learned how some girls were so skinny. They all had eating disorders. Emily saw that what they were doing was of fast and easy way to lose weight so she started doing it. Emily was somewhat aware of what eating disorders could do but she told herself that she would stop before anything would happen. More later something happened that made her change for good. During that summer Emily was asked to be camp leader for a church camp for children with disabilities. After spending time with all the children Emily realized that instead of being thankful for being healthy and having two arms and legs she was harming herself and criticizing her body image. Emily saw how the kids never felt ashamed of their body images and she changed the way she thought about herself. Emily finally realize that what she was doing was wrong and she was making reckless choices. The conflict in the setting work very well together to help Emily solve her problems. This was a story about a problem that many people struggle with in real life. Nowadays people have very low self esteem and will do anything easy but dangerous things to bring their confidence up on their body images. It is important to learn how to accept each person's different body form and not harm it.
Emily Foster is a bit overweight, and she is painfully aware of it. Though her mom is seemingly oblivious to her weight problems, her dad teases Emily about her “baby fat,” and looks disapprovingly on whatever she chooses eat. To make matters even worse, her best friend is an aspiring model, which only causes Emily to feel more self-conscious. Leah has what Emily considers a perfect body, exactly what Emily wishes she could be - tall and thin. Tired of her insecurity, Emily decides that is it time for a change. Her “swan project,” meant to be a way to boost her “ugly duckling” body image, may actually end up causing her more damage than good.
Although Emily’s desire to become healthy isn’t an entirely bad thing, she unfortunately decides to take drastic measures to achieve her goal of becoming thin. Her so-called “diet” is actually a dangerous mixture of bulimia and anorexia nervosa. She first attempts binge eating, then rids her body of the food by “purging,” or forcing herself to throw it all up. After discovering that her bulimia can be hard to hide from others, she decides to barely eat anything while exercising as much as she can. Even though this book focuses specifically on the health consequences of eating disorders, it also explores the dangers of cosmetic surgery. When two of Emily’s model friends, Leah and Becca, must struggle with the damage they have caused their bodies, Emily realizes that she must stop before it is too late.
Emily soon discovers that eating disorders are not only physical battles over the body, they are also internal, spiritual battles. She can only conquer it when she realizes that she doesn’t need to rely on herself alone, but can trust in God’s help, and find her self confidence in Him. When she finally comes clean about her addiction to extreme and harmful dieting, she can truly begin to heal.
The Wordsmith Journal strives to guide readers to books of personal interest, with the understanding and respect that what appeals to some may not appeal to others. Therefore we attempt to keep our reviews focused on content, genre and style. The rating is necessary to make use of Goodreads and Amazon. It reflects the reviewer’s own level of enjoyment, but the review is intended to be informative for the benefit of all readers.