Review: HUNGER by Jackie Morse Kessler

When I was thirteen I had a teacher keep me after class to ask me if I was anorexic. Mortified, I tried to laugh it off and swear to her I wasn't. Whether I managed to convince her or not, I don't know, but she didn't ask me again. The moment made a lasting impression on me, however. I wondered what prompted her to ask. I became self-conscious of what I was eating, worried I was being watched. Was I too thin? Not eating enough? Eating too much? Eating the wrong foods? The right foods? If I didn't have an eating problem before that moment, I sure did after. I was obsessed.

I mention all this because I could be a little biased.

When I heard about the first book of Jackie Morse Kessler's new YA series, in which the main character suffers from anorexia nervosa and yet becomes Famine, one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, I was intrigued. How could anyone who refused food become someone with the power to take food away? How would she deal with that?

When HUNGER opens, the main character, Lisabeth (Lisa) Lewis, is sitting on her bed staring at the set of Scales just given to her, which interrupted her attempted suicide by pill overdose. The pills get swept aside, and Lisa goes to sleep. The next day she thinks it was all a dream. Except for the wanting to die part. She remembers that. She tells her new best friend Tammy about her dream, while they make a batch of cookies. Tammy, we learn is bulimic and an avid supporter of Lisa being anorexic. We also learn Lisa's mom is never around, and her dad is a workaholic.

Lisa sees a black horse standing in the yard. No one else sees it. Then she sees the Scales on the kitchen table. She thinks she's going crazy, but dismisses the thought and carries on with her day.

She goes out on a date with her boyfriend. They bicker, and we see more of Lisa's disorder and how it's affected her relationships and personality. And how her new powers will manifest themselves. While on her date, she accidentally turns her food to ash. Then she makes it disappear altogether. 

Death, another of the Horsemen, comes to meet Lisa, to try to convince her of what she is, who she has become. She doesn't believe him. Not until she accidentally induces hunger-fuelled rage in a restaurant full of people.

The rest of the book becomes more about Lisa coming to terms with being anorexic, than about Lisa becoming Famine, the Horseman of the Apocalypse. And yet, the anorexic issue is not really dealt with either. It's not preachy, by any means. In fact, the story skims over being anorexic, over being Famine, over being a teenager, over pretty much everything. There's not enough to emotionally invest in the story or a character. We get just a nibble about a character, a drop of the story, and then the plot moves on.

The problems with this book start right from the first page. We don't get to see the suicide attempt or any of the events that lead up to it. We don't even get to see the Scales being handed to Lisa, except by flashback. While the flashback and the chronology of the story events are handled well, we should have seen these scenes unfold first-hand since they are pivotal moments in Lisa's development. She refers to them many times throughout the story. The story question, posed by Death, is for Lisa to decide if she wants to live or die. Other events and pivotal moments are thrown at Lisa and she just accepts them. Take for example: on page 53 Death tells her she's not Lisabeth Lewis anymore, now she's Famine. Her response? On page 54, "My dad's going to worry." She accepts being Famine the same way she accepts having to wash the dishes or make dinner. So why doesn't she accept being anorexic? Her friend Suzanne tells her she's anorexic (another event that takes place before the story opens), her boyfriend tells her she's anorexic, Lisa even admits she exercises too much, she's aware of the voice inside her that whispers caloric counts and tells her not to eat, she makes an attempt on her life (that she is entirely aware of), and yet she denies having an eating disorder. I'm not suggesting this is all out of whack or that it's a bad story; I think the character needed more development. I needed more time with Lisa to truly wonder what she was going to do in the end.

I found Lisa to be bland, one-dimensional, defined only by anorexia. Death, War, and even Pestilence were all more interesting characters. I feel this has to do with choice. The other four Horsemen made interesting choices. Lisa didn't really make interesting choices. She made predictable ones.While I'll remember the other characters well, Lisa is forgettable. She needed more details, something that might have explained how this particular teen knows the difference between a philosopher, a philanthropist, and a cynic, or knows what "Junoesque" or "heroin-chic" means. Maybe she reads the dictionary for pleasure or hangs out at museums. I don't know. As it stands, these five-dollar words feel more like author intrusion than character-defined thoughts.

The best scene of the book is when Lisa goes back to fight hunger in an undisclosed Third World community. Finally, finally, we get to see Lisa make choices, grow a spine and do something.

My favourite passage has to be at the end of Lisa's date, when she returns home and Death is waiting in her backyard.

"What do you think?" Death asked. "Should I give her five minutes? Let her calm down first? Maybe give her some time to get ready for her big night out? Or should I throw her to the metaphorical wolves?"

The black horse flicked its ears. The pale horse snorted.

"You're right," Death said. "Girls take forever to get ready. I'll go get her."

Like I said, I'm biased. HUNGER is also fast-paced and informative without being preachy. Heavy topics are nicely concealed within an imaginative fantasy world. But I guess you could say I was left hungry.

Ultimately, I'll read the next in the series, but I don't really care one way or the other if we never see Lisa again. I'm intrigued enough by the world, and the subjects of the next book (rage, cutting, and War) to take a chance on it, but I hope the next character will be a little more interesting. RAGE hits shelves April 2011.

HUNGER hits shelves October 18, 2010 with a portion of the proceeds going to the National Eating Disorders Association.

Jackie Morse Kessler's website.