"Elena Vanishing," by Elena Dunkle & Clare B. Dunkle

Audience: Young Adult/Adult

Genre: Memoir

Overall Content Rating: Unclean

Content Warnings

Adult Issues

Pregnancy out of wedlock

Suggestion of having an abortion

Miscarriage

Rape

Non-graphic, but there were a few mentions of it and one instance where it nearly happened to her again

By the end, there's a more in-depth description of what the guy did to her face, but nothing inappropriate is mentioned (though we know that it happened)

Severe Profane Language

calling people the B-word (used a lot)

calling people a sl-t

calling someone an a-hole

sh-t

Use of God's name in vain

Substance Use

Alcohol: beer, Jack and Coke, vodka

Smoking: cigarettes, mention of pot,

Overall Review

Elena Vanishing is a true story about Elena Dunkle's battle with anorexia. Having read this book before in high school, I can decidedly tell you that the impact of this novel has not changed over time. The mother-daughter authors of this book did an impeccable job turning what could've been mundane events into a story that meant something to the reader. Everything mentioned in this story has a meaning, and it has an impact, and it made me want to read more and more and more until I was crying and then the story was over.

But the ending was worth the pain.

Telling the tale of anorexia is hard, there's no straightforward "ok so this, this, and this happened." No, instead she has to tell us about the ins and outs, the thought processes, the pain she went through. Elena has to be raw and vulnerable with us and tell us about every little aspect of what influenced her for us to understand why she made the choices she did.

It's something that has me in awe every time I read it.

My favorite quote is a quote from the beginning of a book, where the Dunkles write: "Anger is honest. Hatred is a backhanded compliment. Envy is the best compliment of all. But let them turn you into a victim and you're labeled for life. Pity is the sea you drown in" (pp. 2, 2015). Already from that quote, I was hooked and I realized that there was an amount of emotional depth that would be shared.

There are moments in this book, however, that were questionable at best. There's a good amount of cursing and name-calling, a few mentions of alcohol and smoking, an abortion mention, a miscarriage, and a few other things. But that's not why I want to give a warning. That warning could've been summarized only in the CW up above. No, I want to talk about the idea that this book could be hard for you to read, not because it's badly written, but because the content is hard to think about at times.

For someone who struggles with anorexia or food-related thoughts, please be careful with this book, because it quite literally goes into the inner thoughts of Elena as an anorexic and her path to recovery. By the end, we see what happened as a result of her anorexia-related choices, but from the beginning, I don't want anyone to be harmed by this book for lack of foreknowledge.

But by the end, we could see the grave seriousness of anorexia and the death toll, even in the way it impacted Elena's life, but we can also see that it can be recovered from. Perhaps not wholly, not in the way that some may dream of being recovered from it, but it can be mostly absent, even in the hardest of times.

Overall, I loved this book just as much as I did the first time I read it. It's a story that's impacted my life so much in not only my lifestyle but also my hopes and dreams for the future. For those out there who are interested in reading this book despite the content warnings, I'd highly recommend this one.