For twelve-year-old Evan, summertime has always meant carefree days with her family and unlimited time with her best friend, Billie. This year, with her parents on the brink of divorce, she’s staying at Billie’s summer cabin. But Billie only seems to care about crushes these days, and to make matters worse, Evan’s mom’s health obsession has climbed to new heights. The more Evan tries to appease her mom and control her hunger, the sharper it seems to get, until it threatens to drag her under.
As Evan tries to cling to the good things in her life, a sinister presence in the woods begins to stir. Kids are scared, and adults think everyone should go home. Determined to stay, Evan starts hunting for the creature and begins to wonder—is it just her imagination, or is the monster inside her?
I don’t think every middle grade horror novel needs to be a “big message book.” That said, nearly every one that I’ve read has certainly had a lot of important themes in the text/subtext: family, friendship, self-discovery, grief, etc.
I have some very slightly mixed reactions overall to Tehlor Kay Mejia’s THE BETTER TO EAT YOU WITH, but this book tackles an important issue very directly, and in a way that could be deeply impactful to kids that are struggling.
The book deals with eating disorders/disordered eating/orthorexia, so I just want to give a heads-up early on that. I’m not an expert on any of this, though I’ve done my share of reading on the subject. I’ve also had my own struggles with food/eating/body image, both as a kid and in my adult life. As I said, I’m not an expert, so forgive me if I get anything wrong as I try to work my way through this one.
It’s summertime, and 12-year-old Evan Rio is heading to her favorite place in the world, the lakeside town of Sonrisa. Every year Evan and her parents spend the summer there, and Evan gets to be with her long-distance best friend, Billie.
But things are shaping up to be quite different this summer, as Evan’s parents are dropping her off for the summer and heading back home. They’ve been going through a rough patch, fighting constantly, and are going to take the summer to try and salvage their marriage.
On top of all this, Evan’s mother has adopted a really extreme eating/exercise regime that she’s choosing to inflict on Evan. So Evan is in a constant state of worry over things like how hungry she is, or how much to eat at her next meal, over whether some foods are good/safe to eat, over her weight.
And again, she is twelve going on thirteen. So instead of getting excited for the upcoming school year or getting to relax & enjoy her summer, she’s just a vibrating ball of anxiety. She’s not taking care of herself, fearful of her mother’s judgement. She’s blacking out from hunger. It’s just awful, full stop.
And then AS IF THAT ALL WASN’T ENOUGH, some unseen beastie in the forest is leaving animal carcasses & scratch marks all over the town.
This was a tough read & I’m finding it hard to review this book, to be honest. I think what I was ultimately left with was a feeling that this was two separate books, kinda smooshed together. Like, even though there is connective tissue, somehow the horror elements seemed totally secondary to the contemporary part of the story.
But the contemporary part of the story was so compelling, and emotional, and raw. It made me so sad. It made me angry for Evan. I just wanted to scream at her mother, so many times. Oof.
I guess all I mean to say is, for me personally, if there were no horror elements to this, the book would stand perfectly tall on its own. The spooky stuff was…just ok for me.
I adored the friendship between Evan & Billie so much. When we first meet Billie, she’s just…different from how Evan remembers her. Billie is now All About Boys now, and is really preoccupied with crushes, and with texting her friend group back home. But when push comes to shove, Billie proves herself to be an incredible friend to Evan, and that was such a necessary ingredient for this story.
So this was something of a mixed bag for me, but I’m definitely interested in trying out Tehlor Kay Mejia’s other middle grade horror novel, IT HAPPENED TO ANNA.
THE BETTER TO EAT YOU WITH is fast-paced & incredibly well-written. The characters are easy to root for & love. The book handles a deeply serious & sensitive issue with the care it deserves, and I hope it finds its way to the people who might truly need a book like this in their lives.
Grimdark Dad 