As I said in my Waiting on Wednesday post about Zoe Letting Go, I love books written in letter and/or journal form. It just adds something extra personal to the story to not only see things from the main character’s point of view, but to read everything in her own words as well. Zoe Letting Go managed to keep the story flowing between the letters and journal entries, and by the end of the story I felt so close to Zoe that I didn’t want to leave her after reading the last page.

The story starts when Zoe is brought to an institution by her mother. She soon learns that the five other girls are there because of their eating disorders, but she is clearly bigger than them, and since she sees herself as more sane then the rest she automatically thinks of herself as an outsider, and doesn’t understand why she is there. What I had to remind myself more than once is that since everything I read was Zoe’s own understanding of things, it might not always give the clearest picture of a situation, just the way she sees it.

Her therapist encourages her to write, and so Zoe starts writing letters to her best friend Elise. Yet Elise never writes back. I loved seeing Zoe think back on her relationship with Elise, as these were the only times when I felt like something was actually wrong. Their friendship was such a strong one, but they both made sacrifices for each other, and didn’t really have anyone else to rely on. At Twin Birch Zoe starts hanging out with Victoria and Haley, who have both had eating disorders for several years, and she slowly starts seeing that it is possible for her to make friends with others. Still she doesn’t fit in the way the others do, something mean girl Brooke constantly reminds her of.

My favorite parts of this story was Zoe’s therapy sessions with Alexandra. It is here we really get to see who she is, what she’s hiding, how she is trying so hard to remain in control of things, and how she’s afraid to let anyone know what’s really going through her mind. There are some very raw, emotional moments in these scenes, and I absolutely loved it.

Zoe Letting Go takes you on a journey along with Zoe, trying to discover what happened to get her placed at Twin Birch, trying to regain control of her life, and every time I though I had it all figured out something would change, and I’d be questioning everything all over again. This is hands down the best book about eating disorders I have ever read, but it is about so much more than that, and I can only hope you pick up this book and discover it for yourself.