(3) YA When she's first hospitalized for anorexia, twelve-year-old Riley wonders, "If I'm not skinny, who will I be?" After almost two months at the facility--where she makes friends, rediscovers a passion for art, works with a therapist, and eats--she finally acknowledges, "I am Riley." Written as journal entries, the epistolary novel believably captures Riley's disordered thinking and difficult road toward recovery.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Smith

(3) YA Max is a quiet fourteen-year-old Brit who enjoys birds, video games, and geocaching. But his anorexia threatens to take all his attention and might be destroying his family. An endearingly intimate voice draws readers into Max's internal battle, including his notably complex feelings about masculinity and puberty. This tender story is hopeful but painfully honest about the difficult work Max's recovery will require.

Reviewer: Jessica Tackett MacDonald

(3) 4-6 Tally, whose classmates are tired of her superior-seeming attempts to help others, navigates awkward seventh-grade dynamics on a class trip to Washington, DC. Signs of a classmate's eating disorder force her to consider interfering despite others' annoyance. Dee nails the voice and characterization of preteens trying to find their place in the social order. Eating disorder resources are appended.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax

(3) YA Elizabeth, who has anorexia, is being treated at a residential center for girls with eating disorders. With lots of therapy, support from the other patients, and comfort from some mysterious care packages, Elizabeth begins to change her relationship with food and her weight. This debut is a compassionate portrayal of anorexia's physical, psychological, and interpersonal effects; Elizabeth's journey is authentic and heartbreaking.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Smith

(4) 4-6 Emily is starting middle school and suddenly everything is different. Her best friend Hazel is into new things--including boys; her sister Mina is struggling with anorexia; and her father has moved in with his girlfriend. A different group of friends and a newfound sense of self allow Emily to put things in perspective. Emily's feelings resonate in this warm but familiar growing-up story.

Reviewer: Cyrisse Jaffee

(3) YA Andrew, Ben, Clarisa, Stella, and Mason spend a month at Camp Ugunduzi, a "therapeutic wilderness program" for teens with mental health disorders. Together, they bond as a group and confront their individual issues (which include anorexia, narcissism, anxiety, OCD, and depression). The campers' genuine, prickly friendships take center stage in this story that acknowledges the difficult and sometimes impossible-seeming path to recovery.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Smith

(4) YA Dark Roads series. These "map-your-destiny" novels focus on a teen who uses drugs and sex to cope with her parents' divorce (Skeleton); a young Latino man dealing with being gay (Bloodline); and the son of an addict changing his own fate (Fade). The racy, graphic books can be melodramatic, but they raise worthwhile questions about choices and consequences. There are three other fall 2016 books in this series. Review covers the following Dark Roads titles: Bloodline, Fade to Black, and Skeleton Princess.

Reviewer: Lauren Causey

(3) YA With brutal honesty, Elena Dunkle recounts her life with anorexia: her food-hiding strategies; her suspicion of people trying to help; her time in and out of treatment centers; and how not eating felt like a lifeline, even as it destroyed her body and life. The details are sometimes excruciating, and there's hope but no easy fix. A valuable approximation of one anorexic's in-the-moment mindset.

Reviewer: Rebecca Fox

(2) YA After her brother dies, seventeen-year-old Stevie is overwhelmed by grief and a worsening eating disorder. She aspires to waste away by the anniversary of Josh's death, but a month before her deadline, Stevie's dad sends her to an eating disorder clinic. Stevie narrates with an intimate, poetic voice; deftly integrated flashbacks gradually reveal her backstory. Her nascent recovery feels honest and well-earned.

Reviewer: Jessica Tackett MacDonald | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2015

(4) YA It's 1988 in this autobiographical novel, and fifteen-year-old Jennifer is in a psychiatric hospital for bulimia and anorexia. The free verse and prose narratives cover her stay in the hospital, therapy sessions, treatment plans, and workbook pages. This affecting look at disordered eating, alcoholism, depression, and recovery ambitiously tries to tackle too much, resulting in a rather uneven and over-long story.

Reviewer: Amanda Mc. MacGregor

(3) YA This tell-it-like-it-is book questions labels of teens who live on the edges of high school social groups. Etta, the unpredictable, authentic protagonist, is many things at once: smart, a recovering anorexic, bisexual, a theater geek, and black. Her Nebraska town is becoming too small for her New York City aspirations. The dialogue holds true to the gutsy characters, and the plot is believable.

Reviewer: Lauren Causey

(2) YA In this suspenseful, absorbing novel, seventeen-year-old Theo Cartwright's best friend Donovan reappears after four years missing. Theo soon realizes his kidnapper is her (older) ex-boyfriend, Trent. Theo's first-person narration reveals both disturbing details of her time with Trent and her current conflicting feelings of guilt and jealousy: "Either Donovan ran away with my boyfriend...or I was charmed by the scum of the fucking earth."

Reviewer: Katie Bircher | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2014

(4) YA Jack, sixteen and anorexic, is the newest patient in a residential unit for teenagers with eating disorders. Jack channels the energy he usually reserves for over-exercising and hiding food into intense relationships with his stoner roommate and a troubled, secretive ballerina. Although Jack's eventual recovery feels rushed and unsubstantiated, many teens will connect with the drama of his loaded friendships.

Reviewer: Jessica Tackett MacDonald

(4) YA This book ("in the tradition of Go Ask Alice") is ostensibly the found journal of an anorexic teen. The girl, a star runner, starts obsessively keeping track of her caloric intake after her father leaves her (overweight) mother. She starts to recover, then, as Alice fans can predict, things go terribly wrong. An over-the-top but engaging cautionary tale.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz

(3) YA Illustrated by Brendan Halpin. Having found themselves at Heartland Academy, a reform school for troubled youth, Justin, Emmy, and a band of misfit teens attempt to sneak out for one really awesome night of fun and adventure. With Eleanor & Park–esque protagonists and a cast reminiscent of Girl, Interrupted, this is a satisfying story about trauma and laughter, and the power of friendship.

Reviewer: Meredith M. Sittman

(4) YA Orca Soundings series. Mick worries about ex-girlfriend Jade's four-year-old brother, who suffers from migraines. As Gavin's migraines worsen and Jade grows overwhelmed, Mick winds up taking care of them both. Mick's narration alternates with Jade's diary entries; the two perspectives reveal Jade's machinations (and her skewed sense of reality). Good-guy Mick and control-freaky, attention-hungry Jade are fairly flat characters, but the final reveal is well supported.

Reviewer: Katie Bircher

(2) YA Hannah's best friend Lillian died six months ago but now haunts Hannah's every move. The two girls investigate (both in the real world and the supernatural realm) serial-killer murders that pile up in their city. This is taut sleuthing, a supernatural ghost story, and a coming-of-age novel; it's horrific and shrouded in death but also poetic and life-affirming.

Reviewer: Katrina Hedeen | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2013

(4) YA Scarlett's grief over her brother's death manifests as anorexia until Will, the new Jewish kid in her small-town California school, renews her interest in life. Will is supernaturally compelled to save lives (hers included), which complicates their romance. Scarlett is too passive to sustain narrative interest, but the Kabbalah-inspired premise and thoughtful spiritual discussions distinguish this debut.

Reviewer: Claire E. Gross

(4) YA Zoe is mysteriously sent to "recover" at Twin Birch. As the skillfully paced story unfolds through disoriented first-person narration and (unanswered) letters to best friend Elise, details of Zoe's eating disorder gradually emerge. In a disturbing, heartrending climax, readers learn the truth about Zoe's disease, her memory loss, and her friendship with Elise, but an abrupt, idealistic ending lessens the poignancy.

Reviewer: Katrina Hedeen

(4) YA For seventeen-year-old Sethie, an Upper East Side high school senior coping with a distant boyfriend, drug use, and an eating disorder, her body is "an endless source of fascination and disappointment." Though parts of the novel send mixed messages and the present-tense narration aims for urgency and misses, the revelation of an element of unreliable narration makes an effective point about body dysmorphia.

Reviewer: Allison Cole