Mercy, Unbound

This is a rather unusual book. At first glance it seems to be another in the group of books that deal with anorexia, yet it's not that. It's more like a political diatribe of various political/philosophical positions than anything else.

Mercy thinks she's an angel and angels don't have to eat. She ends up, as expected, at a treatment center and makes friends with other girls (somewhat like Girl, Interrupted), yet always holding herself separate from thing since she does not feel she has any kind of an eating disorder.

Her friends apparent death sends her out into the desert for days where she ends up befriended by a couple. Mercy is suffering from total amnesia, but gradually the two adults are able to piece enough together to notify her parents and the center.

There are times in the book where one or the other thing happens or is seen that makes it appear that Mercy could, indeed, by an angel. While suffering from amnesia she has no trouble eating at all, calling into question whether she is, or is not, actually anorexic. She did binge on food before when she was “sad” but stopped that when she began to believe she was an angel.

It's sort of a confusing book. It almost seems like the writer wanted to present a particular political position on various issues and is using the book as a springboard for those issues. The question of whether she is or is not an angel could have been explored in much more depth and it seems it should have been the center concern of the book but it sort of gets lost along the way.

The part in the treatment center is similar to what I've read in various other books, so that was nothing new or particularly different.

In summary, I'd have to rate the book as not being particularly good. It's confusing, it's too full of political issues and discussions, and the material it does have on anorexia isn't anything particularly new or done in a different manner. It could have developed the angel concept much more and run with that but it was sort of kept dangling. Overall quite disappointing.

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