There are so many different and what I feel would be better ways to expose and acknowledge this very real group of people. I just think this didn’t get the message and bring it all the way home.

I was provided with an eARC of this book in exchange for a fair review.

Poetry is not usually my thing, but I am trying to branch out more so thought to give this a try. It. Was. Excellent. The poems are all part of the progressing plot and are beautifully written. This is truly a lovely book!

CONTENT WARNING: Eating disorders

I’m extremely picky about books with eating disorder rep, so I went into this read trying to abandon my skepticism. The premise of a novel about an overweight girl struggling with an eating disorder (the actual type of disorder is never clarified, but there are elements of bingeing, purging and restricting) was promising. The often ignored truth of EDs is that anyone can suffer. At any weight. I loved that the book addressed this.

June is the protagonist of this novel, written in verse. She is suffering with an ED, something that is severely overlooked by her peers due to the damaging stereotypes of what an eating disorder sufferer “should” look like. Her mother, upon noticing her restriction, even goes as far to congratulate her on her weight loss. Heartbreaking. Her peers and family mistook her weight loss as a success, rather than an illness. I cannot speak for this situation as it is not identical to my own experiences, but this felt honest and real.

I liked the verse style, I think it came across like the sharp, damaging thoughts that are accurate in EDs. I did however, think too much was packed into this short book. Toxic relationships, eating disorders and bullying were too ambitious for a book that, considering its format, took me twenty minutes to get through. The resolution at the end of the book was rushed, and at this point the ED rep went downhill for me. The seriousness of June’s situation was not addressed here. Recovery is a lot more complex that the book suggests.

All in all, there were aspects of this book (FINALLY, someone talking about eating disorders in the same space as larger bodies) that I enjoyed. The downfall was it’s length, and that the topics included therefore fell short. Given more room to expand and explore the themes, this story might have rated higher.

** I received a Copy of this book via netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

3 stars

Summary from Goodreads

June is fat. June also has an eating disorder, but no one sees. When she doesn't eat, her friends and family think they see a fat girl on a diet, not someone starving herself. When June's secret is found out by Toby, the new boy next door, she is panicked. Then she learns he also has a secret. Everyone has their own little lies.
"My dream isn't to be

a n o r e x i c

But for people

Like Lacey think

to think I could be."

My thoughts

This was a short little book. I did expect it to be so short. I would have like it to be a little longer. This book is told in verse. I personally feel that I was missing a lot from the story since it is told in verse. It made the book feel light and simple which eating disorders are not. This would be a great book for teens who are getting introduced to eating disorders but not the best if you are looking for some information on this topic.

The writing flowed nicely and the story was very well paced. I would have liked to see how June gets healthy again and overcomes her eating disorder.
"A song comes in

about powerful women

loving themselves.

We sing along.

As loud as we can "

I love this line!

Overall

This book is short and sweet. There were a few things that I wasn't a huge fan of but Not Hungry was a nice quick read and I enjoyed reading it.

3 stars

This review will be on my blog on September 9

https://kierasbookishthoughts.wordpress.com/

This was an interesting read. The formatting was fun, with the words twisting and turning and less complete sentences. It made it go by quickly, which isn't a bad thing, but I wanted more story. I felt so bad for June, her mom is a terrible role model and her sister dates a guy who verbally abuses her. June is overweight and feels like she's not good enough, so she goes on a cycle of starvation, binging, and purging. Then she meets her new neighbor, who's cute and popular and likes spending time with her, but only when no one knows about them.
My favorite part of this is that it focuses on the sister relationship and shows that you don't need validation from anyone, especially a guy. I would have loved this to be longer, but I thought it was well done.

June is fat. And she's not eating. But all everyone sees is a fat girl on a diet. Not someone who is starving herself.

<blockquote><i>"The purging place,"
I call it.

Where I bury my shame.</i></blockquote>

This book has a lot of potential. It brings out to the light controversial topics of today's age: eating disorder. Fat-shaming. Self-deprecation. Blackmailing. Bullying. Manipulation. Emotional abuse. Weak parentage.
This is not an easy read. But <i>it is</i> an important one.

This book very much reminded me of [author:Elizabeth Acevedo|15253645]'s book [book:The Poet X|33294200]. They are both dealing with heavy topics and both are written lyrically. Personally, I find these two themes working very well together. They are able to describe something very complicated in very few words. The writing style also leaves quite some place for the reader's own imagination. The sentence structure works, at least for me, the way that it makes me think about what's <i>not</i> written there.

<blockquote><i>"Now I throw up,
eating in reverse,
closing my eyes
so I don't have to see.
The ground is not like the toilet,
whisking all away with a brisk flush.
It just takes it into itself.
Isn't that what dirt is anyway?
The guts of the earth."</i></blockquote>

The main character and our narrator is June. She's a high school student, and with her best friend Lacey, they're both "the unpopular ones". Lacey's obsessed with finding out everyone's secret. But she is completely blind to her best friend's biggest one. Never she questions if her friend's <i>"I'm not hungry."</i> couldn't mean something else that a diet.
June's sister Mae is (according to her) beautiful. Fat but beautiful. Mae dates this neckless jerk, Erik, that treats her like garbage. Then there's Toby, the boy next-door that learns her secret one night when she let her guard down. They become friends but he is careful not to acknowledge her at school where anyone might find out they know each other.
And, at last, June and Mae's mother, that made her daughter a soup after learning about her eating problem <b>but</b> fished out all the noodles because <i>"We don't want all your hard work to be wasted."</i>

<blockquote><i>"It'll be okay,
she says.
This is Mae's favorite lie.
Like most lies,
it's the thing
we most wish
was true."</i></blockquote>

Honestly, while reading this book I had literally zero expectations about the ending. For the first time in forever, I went in completely open-minded. Frankly, with such a short story like this, I didn't even know how I wanted it to end. But surprisingly, I was very satisfied with the way the author decided to wrap up this story.



MILD SPOILERS BELOW



<blockquote><i>"I sit alone
trying to process
everything
that went
down.

Trying to
decide
where I
fit
and what
I should
do next.

Eat,
I realize.
I should
eat."</i></blockquote>

This is a story of <u>acceptance</u> and the road toward it. It's a bumpy one but it's worth it. I recommend this book to everyone. You may not like it, but you'll definitely learn something.

I want to thank Netgalley for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest review.

I’ll be upfront and say I wasn’t a massive fan of this book.
This book was told in verse which I’m not a massive fan of.
I felt the book focused way too much on the body aspects of eating disorders and overall I felt because it was such a sensitive topic that it wasn’t told well at all and I wouldn’t recommend this book to any young reader.

1 Star.

Not Hungry – Kate Karyus Quinn

Soooo, I don’t usually tend to read much poetry, but requested this one purely from its summary in NetGalley – basically, a fat girl starving herself to lose weight but other people not realizing and just thinking she’s on a diet.

I’ve been that person, I’ve been the person who skips meals so that I can lose weight. I’m the person who doesn’t like eating in front of other people because in my head they’re thinking “look at the fat girl eating”. I’ve been the person at a size UK 12/14, I feel like I’m massively overweight and everyone must be laughing at me. I’ve been the girl that even though I know some of those thoughts are irrational, I have no control over them. So I completely understood June. June rarely eats, and on the occasions where she binges, she vomits after to purge herself. Admittedly, I was expecting this to be a novel when I first began reading it only to find it was poetry. Did that impact on the overall effectiveness? No. Would I read it again? No. Did I completely enjoy it? Kind of.

I probably would have enjoyed it more if it was a novel, but I do feel like the line breaks helped move the poem along and was used to create impact. It paused in just the right places and created silences for dramatic purposes. It touched on so many subjects, eating disorders, abusive relationships, first loves, you can kind of see how it’s suited to its young adult audience. In today’s society, unfortunately, these are things that our youths do go through. We are made to feel we can’t be anything but slim, we can’t look anything but perfect, no one will love us if we’re not perfect. It’s not until you get a little bit older that you start to understand that that really isn’t the case. I’m 29 now, am I comfortable in my own skin? Absolutely not. Do I love myself? No. But do I know I’m worth more than I thought I did as a teenager? Yes. This would probably be a useful read for a secondary school, it touches base on those subjects that are relevant to children of that age and therefore might be a great mental tool for the vulnerable ones that may need it.

Satisfies the craving for raw honesty and shows the reality of eating disorders and what happens to the people left in their wake. Never again will people see each other the same way. 5/5 stars

"Not Hungry" is not a novel, as I first expected, but is more like a poem, where positioning and line break play a huge role for the reading experience. The plot itself is about a girl who suffers from an eating disorder (although she is still overweight), her relationship with her sister, whose in an abusive relationship, her (first) dating-experience and her friendship with another girl at her school.
The book covers very important topics like shame and guilt, peer and social pressure, self-love/self-hate, constant comparison and the basic need to belong. I personally perceived the way this book was written as a very powerful method of creating a more vivid experience for the reader, although I can imagine that for some people it might be off-putting.

My recommendation for this book would be for people that are interested in the topic or have someone in their family/friend-circle who suffers from an eating disorder. Furthermore, I think this book might be especially suited for high school students to be read and more importantly discussed in class! That way, the poetry aspect can be analyzed or at least talked about as well. For schools I therefore would rate the book 4 stars, although I gave just 3 stars for the general rating.

I didn't connect with this writing style, therefore, I did not finish it. I read about 60% of the book and did not feel attached to it at all. TW: EATING DISORDERS

I loved this story! I haven't read any books in verse about this topic, and I think the author did a great job.

*Thanks to NetGalley for sending me this in exchange for an honest review!*

So, recently I've gotten into books told in verse and was ready to read this!

Not Hungry is about an overweight girl named June and her struggle with high school, her complicated feelings for the new boy next door, her sister Mae's boyfriend, and her eating disorder.

Things that I thought were pretty good were how realistic it was as to how not many people notice where someone is struggling with an eating disorder. I personally have been that person to not notice for a while, sadly. I also loved to hate Mae's boyfriend Er-ICK. I did think that was a funny touch. I also really loved her decision at the end of the book. I also really loved the discussion about how you could be fat and beautiful. It's true and lovely.

I really enjoyed how easy it was to read, but it was lacking something. Maybe more details or it just needed to be longer. I just didn't get emotionally attached to the characters as I know I could have been.

Overall, I give 2.5 stars because it was a nice read and tackled important subjects, but it just didn't capture me.

Wow! This book was amazing! I loved the poetry format of it. It made it seem more real like it was actually written by the teen. I really enjoyed it and made it go by so fast. I read it all during my lunch break. This book might be considered a trigger warning. It reminded me a lot about my eating issues in high school. I didn't love the honest truth about how the mother praised her daughter for passing out because she didn't eat...It made me sad!

A wonderful read and really raw.

Kate Karyus Quinn has written some weird books. I feel like she is always trying to push the boundaries with what she writes and I love that about her. I was a little hesitant picking this up, I felt that writing a book about an eating disorder entirely in verse was very much a risk. This could have gone terribly wrong. But I always appreciate Quinn's unique take on things so I wanted to give it a try and keep an open mind. Plus, it's super short so if it was a total disaster, not much time wasted.

I expected this to be more of a poetry book when I read that it was written in verse, but it's actually just more like a creatively styled short story. It likely would have worked just as well if it was written in paragraphs. But I appreciated the unique take. It did sort of allow you to flip through the pages quicker, though it also limited how deep of a dive it could take into some pretty heavy subject matter. It almost made it light, which in a way made it easier to absorb, but also didn't offer full substance for anyone who needed more. As always, for me, the shortness left me unsatisfied. I always want more. Fitting, given this is a book about an eating disorder and starving oneself; I needed more, I wasn't full.

But I did like what it gave me. I felt it accurately portrayed some of the teen girl feels, that loneliness, the wanting to fit in, the not feeling pretty or thin enough. It was a little heartbreaking and sad, witnessing June ache and long. Binge and purge. I was rooting for her, and enjoyed watching her find her footing, even if only briefly.

Things seemed to right themselves almost too quickly, too easily, in the end, but it was a good wrap up to a short, heartfelt story with a strong message that I can really get behind. This may not be much, but every bit is quality and well worth the quick read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book.

June has a big secret. It's only two words, but it's a secret that affects her entire life. She's not hungry.

I think this book is a good start to something, but I feel like it never really got there. It's like a snapshot...you get the jist of what is happening, but not the whole story.. I wanted more. There were hints as to why June was starving herself, but no real explanation. The format was also strange to me, and I'm unsure how I felt about it. I just wanted more.

I liked that it was written in verse although that can sometimes lead to a certain detachment, which I felt for the characters.
I wish the book was longer and I missed a bit more of June's back story.

Thanks to @west44books and @netgalley for the advance Kindle copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
•
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 for this novel in verse, which is out on 8/1. June struggles with her body image, and she tells the same lie over and over again - “I’m not hungry.” As she watches her sister’s dysfunctional relationship with her jock boyfriend, a new guy moves next door. By night, he and June are friends. By day, he ignores her. Things come to a head when June can’t hide her secret anymore, but what she discovers when it is revealed is not what she expected. This is advertised as hi-lo and has older characters, but I plan to add it to my collection. I will be recommending it to my eighth graders this fall. #yalit #middleschoollibrarian #librarian #librariansofinstagram #novelsinverse

Many thanks to NetGalley and West 44 for providing this book for an honest review.
I liked Not Hungry. I didn't quite love it, though. The book is written in verse, which I wasn't sure of at first as it's not a style I typically read, but it worked out well for the story. It's told from June's point of view, showing her struggles with her eating disorder. Other players in this story are June's similarly plus-sized sister, her sister's abusive boyfriend, her best friend, and the cute-but-also-very-popular boy next door.
For a story on such a very serious subject, it was a bit aggravating that everything seemed to be tied up with a nice bow at the end. It showed so well the unfairness and messiness of life throughout, so the ending didn't seem to fit. I think the book could have been extended another 100 pages, if not more, to get a more realistic resolution. I'd like to see June face her eating disorder head-on, and how it further affected her relationships with her family and friends.
Ultimately, this book was good, and I think it will be helpful for those who are facing similar issues.

*thank you to Netgalley, West 44 Books and the author for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

3 stars.

This wasn't great but it wasn't bad either. I had expected it to be a poetry book but I don't think it was. It was more of a loose writing style of a short story. But I didn't mind. The story was good. I think though it might have been maybe a bit better as a short story, maybe diary entries but that's not to say this style was bad. I did find it a bit distracting at times though even though it was fun to read it the way it's been formatted.

It's about a girl, June and her Sister Mae. June has an Eating Disorder and that's what the main focus is of this book. Mae is the girls who's boyfriend is a total jerk. I didn't like either of the two main male characters or But I did like June and Mae and I was proud of both girls in the end. 

I'm still 50/50 on this book though. It just feels like something is missing. I don't think I would recommend this but I also wouldn't say to you not to.