Book Review: Faded Denim by Melody Carlson

ISBN: 1576835375
Published: June 15th, 2006
Publisher: Think
Read from January 24th to 28th, 2013
Synopsis from Goodreads:

All of Emily's friends seem so perfect: skinny and pretty and fun and flirty. Emily loathes her slightly overweight body, and as her secret bitterness begins to eat away at her soul, she faces the dark prospect of developing an eating disorder.
This ninth book in the TrueColor teen fiction series, Faded Denim takes a serious look at the important issues of body image and eating disorders. Includes discussion questions.

Review:

As I was reading this book, I had very strong mixed feelings about it.  Now that it's been a week or so since I finished, I can't really remember much of what I thought was wrong with it though.  However, I think that actually says a lot.  I don't think this book was as powerful as it had the potential to be.  It was just kind of forgettable.

This is a Christian book, so God and religion was talked about quite a bit.  I don't have a problem with that, but I don't think it was dealt with in the same possible way.  This may sound bad, but I almost thought as if all of these characters were too strong in their faith.  Every teenager in this book was praying constantly and never really doubted God.  I just feel as if Emily should have been struggling a bit more considering she was dealing with an eating disorder.  I thought it was interesting how she constantly justified the eating disorder to herself and to God throughout the book, but I just think there could have been more done there.

I thought eating disorders were handled well enough, but the story never really made me emotional.  This girl is literally starving herself.  I should have felt more emotion than I did.  I think a lot of it was Emily's lack of emotion.  I don't know much about eating disorders, but I feel as if she should have gotten a lot more emotional than she ever did.  She seemed far too calm the entire time.  Even once she realized she was sick and wanted help, there weren't really any emotions.  Not only did that not make sense to me, but it made it so I wasn't that affected by the book.  It basically made the book more forgettable.

The book wasn't horrible by any means.  I just think there was a lot of potential there, and instead it was just kind of unemotional and didn't deal with things as well as it should have.