Dancing with Ana by Nicole Barker

Dancing with Ana is a young adult novel about a girl in high school who decide she is overweight and needs to go on a diet.  Immediately she begins starving herself.  There is also a subplot about a friend of hers that has an issue with her mother and is afraid of the ocean.

Now, I’m not really an expert on eating disorders or abusive parents but it all seemed a little bit too easy and wrapped up a little too nicely at the end.  I found the character development was shallow and the characters unrealistic.  I realize that I am not the target audience for this novel but I still had a hard time making myself finish it.

The book dealt with a serious issue (two, if you count the abusive mother subplot) but it was just so cheesy that it was hard to take seriously.  It just seemed a little too easy for Beth (the main character) to decide that she was ok with the way her body looked.  This book really had potential to be something more but in my opinion it missed the boat.   I also found the writing style to be off-putting.  I can’t really put my finger on what bothered my about it, but it was just a low level read.  Not simple and eloquent, just simple…

Anyway, I really didn’t enjoy this book but I do have one good thing to say about it.  For a book with obviously such a low publishing budget, I was amazed at the lack of spelling and grammatical errors.  I’ve read books with huge promotional budgets from major publishers with more errors than this book had.  Kudos to the editor!