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| Anorexia Books from Amazon |
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My Sister's Bones
List Price: $19.00
Amazon Price: $10.96
Average Customer Rating:  (35 reviews)
Editorial Review: At sixteen, Billie Weinstein has plenty of problems: She's the only Jewish girl living in the all-Italian neighborhood of West Berry, NJ; she's trying hard to please her know-it-all father who listens to opera at full volume and drives full speed, and her too-accommodating mother who is either taking care of Billie's father, or Billie and her sister, or the two dogs; and on top of everything else, her older sister Cassie goes off to college, leaving Billie to fend for herself.
And now Billie's studying for the SATs. The task her father has given her is to learn twenty words a day, read the New York Times at least twice a week and watch Masterpiece Theatre whenever he tells her to, mostly because he likes it. Then Billie discovers her sister's secret: Cassie is battling anorexia and Billie's parents excuse Cassie's weight loss as stress due to the competitive atmosphere at college. Billie knows something is drastically wrong with her sister; something that could be fatal....
Customer Reviews:
0 of 0 found this review helpful:
 excellent book..bad ending, 2008-01-15
I really loved this book. I read it everyday and minute I could. It was well written and a great story that kept me wanting to read on. I was nearing the end and it felt so much like it would have a big surprise ending.It didnt really end and I wanted some of my questions to be answered that werent but all in all a great read.
0 of 0 found this review helpful:
This was a really good book, 2007-04-23
I only realised a few weeks after I finished this book just how impressed I was by it. In the last few months I've read quite a few books dealing with the subject of Anorexia, and this was one of the ones that I thought gave the topic just the right mix of simplicity and horror. Simplicity because it is just so easy to slip into something like this and so simple, as a family, to not see what is right in front of you before it is - perhaps - too late; and horror because, out of so many things, anorexia truly attacks your mind, just as much as your body.
I thought this book was beautifully written.
5 of 5 found this review helpful:
 I devoured this book, 2006-07-13
It's been a long time since I've picked up a book and read non-stop the way I read, "My Sister's Bones," by Cathi Hanauer. There are so many things I liked about it, but it was primarily the excellent, utterly readable writing. There is nothing excessive--each word counts in this first person story of Billie Weinstein and her struggle through family life as a sixteen year old girl. I assume this story takes place in the 1970s, given all the references, yet because it is written in first person and doesn't give off even a trace of nostalgia, I had the feeling that I was in the same room as Billie as she told her tale in present tense.
Billie's beautiful and intelligent older sister, Cassie, suffers from anorexia. Hanauer expertly details the emotions brought on by this disease on behalf of each of the family members: Billie's fear for her sister, her parents' denial and debate over treatment, and Cassie's deterioration. But this is not Cassie's story. This is Billie's story and it's about so much more than her sister's anorexia. Billie is a rather typical suburban teenager, coping not only with her sister's illness, but also with pressure from her parents to do well on the SAT test, learning how to drive, dealing with a popular boyfriend who wants more from her than she's willing to give, and a best friend with a colorful family who simply disappears one day . . .
One can't help but fall in love with Billie. I thoroughly enjoyed reading her story and because of Hanauer's talent for storytelling, I look forward to reading more of her work.
From the author of "I'm Living Your Dream Life," and "The Things I Wish I'd Said," McKenna Publishing Group.
3 of 4 found this review helpful:
Karen's Review of My Sister's Bones, 2005-12-09
The book My Sister's Bones by Cathi Hanauer is a compelling story about a sixteen-year old girl Billie and her life as she deals with her sister's anorexia, school, life and boys.
Billie has noticed that recently her sister Cassandra is acting strange. She is giving away all her clothes, acting frantic and loosing an unhealthy amount of weight at the college that she has recently started attending. Billie has trouble with this because Cassandra has confided in her and told her about her problems but Billie feels obligated to tell her parents.
Instead Billie tells her new Boyfriend Vinnie, and her best friend Tiffany. They try to comfort her but she is disturbed by images that she sees in a book about anorexia. Her sister ends up in a hospital and receives treatment for her disease. Billie's life starts to spin out of control as Vinnie pressures her to do things that she doesn't want to do. As a teenager in high school, Billie is desperate to fit in. She feels like she is the only virgin in her school. She wants to have sex to fit in and please Vinnie, but in her heart she knows that she is not ready to take a step like this. She is no longer able to confide in her best friend Tiffany because her and her family disappear without a trace. Billie is worried that they have gotten into some trouble with the law because Tiffany's father has a questionable business. Billie goes to Tiffany's house and discovers that nobody is there. It is a mess and it appears that they left in a hurry.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is struggling with or knows somebody who has anorexia. I liked this book because it dealt with many issues that teenage girls face such as body image, stress, sex, sisterhood, friendship, and growing up. I would recommend this book to teen-aged girls because it provides many examples of what to do and what not to do when dealing with the stresses of being a teen-ager. It is important for women to read this book because it provides us with perspective that we would not usually be able to see and allows us to see similarities to ourselves so that we can better change and understand our thoughts,feelings and actions.
5 of 5 found this review helpful:
Not Just a Story About Anorexia, 2005-08-12
I picked up this book expecting to read a book about anorexia told by the person with the disorder who focused solely on the effects of anorexia on herself. That is why when I discovered that Billie (the sister of Cassandra, the anorexic) was the narrator of the story, I was a little surprised.
Billie is sixteen when her sister Cassie goes off to college at Cornell, which is referred to in the book by Billie as 'Corn Hell', by the prompting of her docter father. A little before Christmas break, Billie recieves a phone call from Cassie that truly disturbs her. Over Christmas break Cassie looks way too thin and becomes withdrawn from all of her old friends and family. Her father blames it all on exams and the stress of college. Billie knows it is something more complicated.
Although the main point of this story is about how Billie and her family deal with Cassie's anorexia, My Sister's Bones is also about Billie discovering herself in a divided town when she has no upbringing true to any one race/religion (her father is Jewish by birth but he never raised his kids that way). She finds comfort in her best friend Tiffany, learns why giving up Vinnie was a mistake, and realizes that Dominick is not all what he seems to be.
The uncertainty of Billie is easy to relate to and the story line itself is definitely complex and compelling enough to scare anyone out of becoming anorexic. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who needs a thought-provoking novel or insight into how much anorexia really hurts the person and their family and friends around them.
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