“I carry it all, and it’s heavy enough that I’m tired and need to rest. Just heavy enough that I know: I am here. I am alive.”

This is a beautifully written debut novel about pain and loss. Haston takes is inside the head of someone dealing with an eating disorder.

Stevie is dealing with the guilt of her brother’s death and is planning to kill herself on the 1 year anniversary. There are some hard mental health topics throughout the story, like anxiety, eating disorders, depression and self-harm. I have come across very few books that breach these topics.

The book is told from Stevie’s POV in the present, along with flashbacks that show how her eating disorder started.

The reason I gave it a lower rating is because I had a hard time connecting with the main character, and I think it was because I have absolutely no experience with eating disorders. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the story as a whole, and I feel like if I was closer to it I would definitely give this five stars.