Young Writers Society

It was raining. Some where in between that terrible drizzling stage where you didnt know if it was justified to use an umbrella and that God-is-up-there-peeing-on-me rain. Outside my window was a foggy gray flop. Exactly how I felt. My three other roomates, Kathryn Anorexic, Jaymee Bulimic, Michelle Mystery, were still asleep, sprawled out comfily in their beds. They had told me that Sunshine Acres places you in rooms with people like you. My third day here and my body hadnt adjusted to the 8:30 wake up bell yet, which is why I was the only one awake. I was still used to waking up earlier for school. Through the thin plaster walls I could here another girl snoring loudly. I looked lazily at my few personal possesions on the table by my bed. A framed picture of my step mom, dad, me and my little sister. The same one we used in our christmas cards ten months before. My stuffed rabbit who had had a place in my bed every night since forever, and my diary. I opened it up and turned back the pages to the entry that would eventually bring me here.

February 4
I threw up again today. I think I have now every day for the past 5 days. Its three oclock and I already have twice. Tonight Im going to eat at my Uncles house so Im not sure if I will be able to pull that off. I wish I could be anorexic, but I love food so much. I tried, I can be anorexic for about two hours before I get hungry lol.
Im not stupid, I know this could potentially be a dangerous game that Im playing, but Life is just so stressfull right now, with moving and everything, and I can tell that I'm gaining weight. I know that if I ever get caught some serious shit will go down. My step mom really doesn't care about my life, and she has such a big mouth everyone would know right away. Maybe they would even take it super seriously and send me to a mental home, ha, as if! Im not too worried though. Its not like I have an eating disorder. I trust that I will grow out of this in time... maybe after I have lost some weight.

I closed the book, silently laughing at the Me that I was eight months ago. How innocent, completely oblivious she was to the monster that would grow and devour her in the time after she that entry. If I could magically go back and change things I would. I wouldnt mind going back even 8 days, and choosing not to throw up taco tuesday in the girls locker room at school. Maybe if only I had drank more water that day I wouldnt have fainted standing up from the toilet bowl. If only I had been quicker to flush it and it would only be a sort-of embarressing memory. Instead I was found by the health-slash-gym teacher, laying on the floor below a bowl of puke and my hand basically down my throat. It couldnt have been any more obvious. I wish I could go back to the last week of school when I went out for smoothies with a new friend. She had confessed to me that she had made herself throw up before, and waited for me to say the same; I could tell that she was sure I had some problems with that, but she wanted me to tell her. Instead I laughed and told her I was jealous, that I had tried only to discover I had no gag reflex, and that was the end of that conversation. Maybe if I had opened up to her things would be different. Maybe we could have helped eachother; partners in crime. I closed the diary. Jaymee Bulimic was watching me sleepily from the top bunk bed accross from mine, her eyes silently screamed understanding.

Hey sillypinkpony37,

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this story. It's a difficult topic to write about, and although you certainly could have done a much worse job of it, I believe that you could have done better with it, too. It's fairly sensitive and accurate, but at the same time I don't think you've conveyed too many of the emotions that a bulimic would feel. I'm not in love with this story, in particular, because I don't think it has much of a point. It presents a shallow view at best -- I think that to make it better, you would have to delve far deeper into your character's mind and the events that led up to the present.

The ending paragraph, perhaps, does come close to delving into her mind more deeply at points. I do like how you've managed to describe how much she wishes she could go back in time -- but at the same time, it could be much deeper.

I have to admit that the diary entry in the story (this one:

February 4
I threw up again today. I think I have now every day for the past 5 days. Its three oclock and I already have twice. Tonight Im going to eat at my Uncles house so Im not sure if I will be able to pull that off. I wish I could be anorexic, but I love food so much. I tried, I can be anorexic for about two hours before I get hungry lol.
Im not stupid, I know this could potentially be a dangerous game that Im playing, but Life is just so stressfull right now, with moving and everything, and I can tell that I'm gaining weight. I know that if I ever get caught some serious shit will go down. My step mom really doesn't care about my life, and she has such a big mouth everyone would know right away. Maybe they would even take it super seriously and send me to a mental home, ha, as if! Im not too worried though. Its not like I have an eating disorder. I trust that I will grow out of this in time... maybe after I have lost some weight.

) is the part of the story I really don't particularly like.

This is the sentence which bothers me in particular:

I tried, I can be anorexic for about two hours before I get hungry lol.

It's just not the kind of thing a person would say, and it certainly doesn't help the reader sympathise with the character. I think it's quite a shallow way to try and show what a bulimic's feelings might be like. The "lol" at the end is especially out of place. The fact that the character would, again, laugh about such a thing doesn't help me sympathise with her.

I suggest that if you try something like this again, you try to delve a little deeper into the horrible reality of bulimia (or the illness you're exploring) the thoughts and emotions the sufferer cannot escape from. That being said, this review might seem very harsh but I'm only trying to present my complete honest opinion. I have to at least give you credit for trying and not presenting a completely insensitive view of the illness. After all, you can only improve in time.

Keep writing,

~MorningMist~

Hi there sillypinkpony!

I have to agree with MorningMist that this probably isn't a very accurate short story. When writing about such a touchy subject, you'll want to have done some research beforehand and maybe read some books. I've read tons of books about these types of eating disorders, I've watched movies where some protagonists suffer from anorexia and/or bulimia (or both) and I've witnessed the terrible effects of it on friends and acquaintances alike. To be honest, you've not done very well in writing from a bulimic's point of view.

First of all, I want to make it extremely clear that people struggling with eating disorders may not always recognize this fact. Anorexics and bulimics have a distorted vision of what their body looks like which, subsequently, results in them always dieting in unhealthy and sometimes fatal ways and not stopping. They do not see how thin they are getting and they lie. A lot.

Second of all, when people are hospitalized for eating disorders, as far as I know from visiting people suffering from these disorders, are not placed in rooms comprised of multiple people. It would be silly, in fact, since it would encourage these sick people to further their unhealthy habits. Thus, I find it hard to believe your protagonist is being cared for in a decent hospital.

Third here is mainly centered around the old diary entry of this girl's. It's again a highly unbelievable entry for a bulimic - she's much too conscious of what she's doing and so that creates a less genuine person. People don't necessarily choose to have an eating disorder. It's been proven by scientists and doctors that it is, in fact, a mental illness. It's redundant to point out a common provocation of such an illness: the want/need for attention. Your protagonist, or rather you, has bluntly written this straight off in her diary. It again makes the entire situation hardly realistic or believable.

Another thing about the diary entry is that I think, despite she may have been young, I doubt people write diaries in chatspeak/text-talk. So, fix that. It'll be easy. No ims or lols or anything. It's silly and bizarre, especially as a journal entry.

And something else:

I can be anorexic for about two hours before I get hungry

Being anorexic, like I mentioned previously, is not a choice, however debatable people may like to think that is. So, if I didn't eat for five hours, I'm not anorexic. I just didn't eat. Anorexia is severe starvation to an unhealthy weight. This line is redundant.

So, next time, please do some proper and effective research. It'll be great and actually enable you to write something like this with a lot more ease! If you have any questions about this review, please don't hesitate to shoot me a PM.

Yours,
Lavvie