Shaun Hutchinson's Reviews > The Art of Starving

There were days when I was depressed when I would lay in bed for 20 hours with my eyes closed, and I began to believe I could see through my eyelids. I didn't know if it was echolocation or X-ray vision, but I believed. There were other days when I could cut myself, and the pain made me feel powerful. It didn't feel like I was bleeding out, but that I was bleeding in. I know that none of those things were true. I know that I couldn't see through my eyelids and that cutting didn't make me powerful, but I felt it at the time.

Maybe Matt's struggle with his eating disorder and body dysmorphia and their connection to his superpowers doesn't make sense to you. But it makes perfect sense to me. I think Sam J. Miller walks a very fine line in The Art of Starving. How to accurately portray the feelings of a boy who is justifying his decision to starve himself and how it makes him feel with the reality of eating disorders and without glorifying them. And I think Miller does it really well. I never had an eating disorder, but along with depression, I've suffered from body dysmorphia my entire life. I know what it's like to look in the mirror and hate what you see staring back. Miller's description of Matt's struggles rang so true to me that they were often too painful to read and I needed to take a break.

But the book isn't just breaking down dealing with an ED, it's exploring the connection gay men have with idealized bodies, toxic masculinity, the ways in which we hide addictions in plain sight. One scene in particular really hit me hard. It was when Tariq had (view spoiler)[ confronted Matt about his eating disorder and Matt tried to use sex to deflect. Been there, done that, got my card punched. (hide spoiler)] It hurt so much to watch Matt go through that, but I'm glad Tariq turned out to be an actual good guy.

The biggest criticism I see here is from people who think leaving the "superpowers" ambiguous could lead susceptible teens to see this as a manual rather than a warning, but I disagree. I think that while Miller did leave it open as to whether or not the powers existed, he is very clear that they are not connected to Matt starving himself. If Matt is an unreliable narrator and doesn't have powers, then his "powers" are mental manifestations of his problems. If the powers ARE real (and I like to believe they are) then they came from within Matt and he never needed to starve himself to access them, just as is shown in the end when he calls the wind. So I think the criticisms that it's too ambiguous miss the mark. I think Sam J. Miller makes the point about the harms of eating disorders VERY clearly without being didactic or Very Special Lesson about it.

Of course, I would have liked to have gotten to know Tariq a little more, and I would have liked seeing a little more into Matt's treatment, but I get why Miller didn't go there. The treatment wasn't the point, it was the admission that he needed it. That was the point.

All in all, this is a great addition to the growing world of gay YA lit, and I can't wait to see what Sam J. Miller writes next.