What do you think?
Rate this book
Perk!: The Story of a Teenager with Bulimia
Filling the void in written resources for teenage girls with eating disorders, "Perk!" is the first title in Gurze's new education and prevention series for kids, teens, and young adult. Perk, whose real name is Priscilla, is a high school student with self-doubts, weight concerns, and puppy love--all of which impel her into bulimia.
- GenresYoung AdultFiction
128 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1997
92 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 18, 2018
This book is about a girl named Pricilla or known as by her nickname,Perk,who has a mental disorder known as bulimia.She is always thinking about her weight and she thinks she is chubby mostly because of her mom who is constantly bugging her about her weight and tells her that a teenager shouldn't be that big.She also has a crush on a boy named Dom and she thinks he's the "hottest kid in the grade" but she never wants to make a move on him because she's "too fat for him" and that she never has a chance with him.I thought this book was pretty good because most teenagers deal with negative self image and we are constantly thinking we're the only people who deal with no liking our bodies but in reality,we all go through it.This book also sparks up a conversation because society makes us feel like talking about this kind of stuff isn't normal but talking about it makes us speak up about these kinds of things and spreads awareness about mental health.
December 24, 2022
educational, but not realistic
November 6, 2011
Hey, for a school book, it coulda been worse.
Review to come.
*UPDATE 11/6/11*
This is a book I read in my health class. At the time, we were learning about mental disorders. :D
Perk! is about a girl named Pricilla Sinclair (correct me if I'm wrong. I don't have the book on me), also known as Perk. It is her first day back to school after being out with bronchitis. She is VERY self-conscious and constantly refers back to her chubbiness. To make matters worse, she has a crush on the super-hottie, Dom, her "best friend's" ex-boyfriend. He pays her very little mind. She blames it on her "fat."
It is very clear that her distorted image of herself comes from her mom's verbal abuse. Her mother is super-model thin, and always reminds Perk that she was never Perk's weight when she was a teenager.
Good going, mommy. And you call yourself a student counselor?
To solve her problem, Perk turns to purging after she eats. This leads to disaster.
I will admit, Perk was annoying. NOT because of her disorder, but because of the way she spoke. She was always in a "baby-talk" mode. You know, the way you talk to something super cute? I've never been one to baby-talk, so it kind of bothered me.
*So wishing I still had the book on me xD*
I have never had an eating disorder before, so I don't really get why Perk is doing this to herself. As someone prone to migraines, and constantly puking up whatever I eat, I don't get why someone would willingly go through that. I suppose it's just something that only someone who has it would know how it feels.
I couldn't relate to Perk, so it made it harder to enjoy this book.
I think the best part about reading this was my class's commentary. My class is a bit of a...loud bunch, and said some stupid things.
"So, what's Perk's favorite activity?"
"Puking! :D"
"No, guys! It's "
The ending was kind of...rushed. I don't like how . It also seemed kind of too easy to get Perk to get help. She never seemed to have that "I'm going to die" moment. Maybe it's just me.
Review to come.
*UPDATE 11/6/11*
This is a book I read in my health class. At the time, we were learning about mental disorders. :D
Perk! is about a girl named Pricilla Sinclair (correct me if I'm wrong. I don't have the book on me), also known as Perk. It is her first day back to school after being out with bronchitis. She is VERY self-conscious and constantly refers back to her chubbiness. To make matters worse, she has a crush on the super-hottie, Dom, her "best friend's" ex-boyfriend. He pays her very little mind. She blames it on her "fat."
It is very clear that her distorted image of herself comes from her mom's verbal abuse. Her mother is super-model thin, and always reminds Perk that she was never Perk's weight when she was a teenager.
Good going, mommy. And you call yourself a student counselor?
To solve her problem, Perk turns to purging after she eats. This leads to disaster.
I will admit, Perk was annoying. NOT because of her disorder, but because of the way she spoke. She was always in a "baby-talk" mode. You know, the way you talk to something super cute? I've never been one to baby-talk, so it kind of bothered me.
*So wishing I still had the book on me xD*
I have never had an eating disorder before, so I don't really get why Perk is doing this to herself. As someone prone to migraines, and constantly puking up whatever I eat, I don't get why someone would willingly go through that. I suppose it's just something that only someone who has it would know how it feels.
I couldn't relate to Perk, so it made it harder to enjoy this book.
I think the best part about reading this was my class's commentary. My class is a bit of a...loud bunch, and said some stupid things.
"So, what's Perk's favorite activity?"
"Puking! :D"
"No, guys! It's "
The ending was kind of...rushed. I don't like how . It also seemed kind of too easy to get Perk to get help. She never seemed to have that "I'm going to die" moment. Maybe it's just me.
March 17, 2013
If the narrator hadn't mentioned being a tenth grader, I would have pegged her as an eighth grader -- and that only because I was guessing middle school and thought wait, it says it's a teenager with bulimia... In any case, the age is off. Actually, "off" describes the whole book pretty well.
Timing: off. It's not clear how much time passes, which may be due to the author wanting to skip from "I just threw up for the first time" to "now I'm fully bulimic".
Characters: off. Well, not "off" so much as "completely one-dimensional". Also, plenty of characters who pop in just long enough to teach Perk a lesson, then pop back out and are never heard from again.
Resolution: off. There's the requisite sappy scene in which the character decides to recover, and then a let's-sum-it-up chapter in which she informs us that it had been a year since that decision and she'd only thrown up a couple of times (which now "made [her] feel really bad"). Her parents are magically nicer, and she suddenly has lots of support, a new best friend, and a new boyfriend.
Publishing: off. I'm not sure what happened when they edited and formatted this book; in several places sentences - or parts of sentences, or possibly entire pages - are missing. It's not hard to fill in the blanks, but it's distracting.
On the upside, it was short enough that not too much time was spent reading it... Oh, okay, I can be nicer than that. It's not that it's a poorly conceived book -- it's more that the author doesn't seem to have a great grip on the age/voice she was going for, and the editing was abysmal. There are much better books out there.
Timing: off. It's not clear how much time passes, which may be due to the author wanting to skip from "I just threw up for the first time" to "now I'm fully bulimic".
Characters: off. Well, not "off" so much as "completely one-dimensional". Also, plenty of characters who pop in just long enough to teach Perk a lesson, then pop back out and are never heard from again.
Resolution: off. There's the requisite sappy scene in which the character decides to recover, and then a let's-sum-it-up chapter in which she informs us that it had been a year since that decision and she'd only thrown up a couple of times (which now "made [her] feel really bad"). Her parents are magically nicer, and she suddenly has lots of support, a new best friend, and a new boyfriend.
Publishing: off. I'm not sure what happened when they edited and formatted this book; in several places sentences - or parts of sentences, or possibly entire pages - are missing. It's not hard to fill in the blanks, but it's distracting.
On the upside, it was short enough that not too much time was spent reading it... Oh, okay, I can be nicer than that. It's not that it's a poorly conceived book -- it's more that the author doesn't seem to have a great grip on the age/voice she was going for, and the editing was abysmal. There are much better books out there.
June 22, 2008
Again, another book I read for an Adolescent Literature course at Lesley. I feel this book hit the nail on the head of a teen struggling with bulimia. I put this book under psycho-ed and gave it four stars because unlike many of the fictional books on eating disorders I feel this one is respectful of its audience and isn't a "guide", if you know what I mean.
January 19, 2011
I checked out this book from my high school library the other day. I am now confused as to why it was there at all. The book is more suited for middle school children than for high schoolers. I found the writing and the storyline in general to be quite simple. This is not to say that it was bad, just that it was simple.
December 14, 2008
This book was so good! It only took me about 5 hours to read. I think it really shows the emotional part of eating disorders and also shows how people with eating disorders rationalize what they are doing.
May 10, 2015
Unrealistic storyline and characters. Very amateur writing. Loads of editing errors and typos.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews