What is anorexia nervosa?
Most of us think we know. Most of us know
famous people with the disease. We know the signs, perhaps we have an opinion
about why you get this disease, perhaps some of us are even a bit jealous of
this apparent ability to control your weight and become thin.
But for the author, who was thirteen years
old at the time, anorexia was a voice inside, a monkey on her shoulders, a
voice relentlessly criticising her, telling her that she was fat, and that the
only way for her to become happy was by starving herself. Jess, who is the
protagonist of this story, listens to the voice, and, sadly, so do many other
girls and boys, the voice killed her, almost.
The book describes the path to recovery,
the struggle not to become another number in the death statistics. She
gradually realizes that she wants to live and help others to live, by telling
them about what happened to her.
Monkey Taming is an uplifting novel written
by a young women and based on her own experiences.