Second Star to the Right

            I am currently reading the book Second Star to the Right by Deborah Hautzig. This book is about a young 14-year-old girl living in New York City about a decade ago. She tells the story in her own perspective of the difficult teenager years in her life where she battled with all different types of eating disorders from anorexia to bulimia. Many different things interest me about this book so far, but one thing I find especially interesting is her relationships with her family member throughout this time.

            One relationship that the author makes out to be very close is between Leslie and her mother. From the very beginning of the book, Hautzig shows how Leslie and her mother tell secrets and how she tells her mother absolutely everything. From the first chapter, the author includes the quote, “maybe I love her too much,” when Leslie is first introducing her mother to the reader. Throughout the book, you see how this relationship is slowly changing. She goes from telling her mother every detail about her life to not being able to even speak to her. I think that the eating disorder was such a huge secret for Leslie to keep from her mother that it basically ruined their whole relationship.

            Another relationship in the book is between Leslie and her friends. Her best friend—Cavett—is a girl that goes to her school, and she seems to have an interesting relationship with her. At the beginning of the book Leslie seems to be jealous of Cavett’s weight. She consistently seems to question everything that Cavett does and ask why she is still thin. Another friendship that she has is with a friend from her old middle school. In one part of the book, after Leslie had lost nearly 25 pounds, she meets up with her friend Robin to go shopping. Robin asks all of these questions about her weight loss, but Leslie still refuses to admit that she has lost weight.

            I think that so far this book is pretty sad. You can definitely see how the eating disorder that Leslie struggled with, changed her immensely. She goes from being a cute bubbly personality to a sluggish tired-looking and sick girl. This disease that Leslie had to deal with took over her completely to the point where she didn’t even have control over her actions. Even after Leslie had lost nearly 30 pounds, she continued to starve herself and put her body through miserly. I found this whole book extremely sad because Leslie seems so lost and helpless while in this situation.