Series: Standalone
Release Date: June 30, 2020
Rose and Lily Winters are twins, as close as the bond implies; they feel each other’s emotions, taste what the other is feeling. Like most young women, they’ve struggled with their bodies and food since childhood, and high school finds them turning to food—or not—to battle the waves of insecurity and the yearning for popularity. But their connection can be as destructive as it is supportive, a yin to yang. when Rose stops eating, Lily starts—consuming everything Rose won’t or can’t.
Within a few years, Rose is about to mark her one-year anniversary in a rehabilitation facility for anorexics. Lily, her sole visitor, is the only thing tethering her to a normal life.
But Lily is struggling, too. A kindergarten teacher, she dates abusive men, including a student’s married father, in search of the close yet complicated companionship she lost when she became separated from Rose.
When Lily joins a cult diet group led by a social media faux feminist, whose eating plan consists of consuming questionable non-caloric foods, Rose senses that Lily needs her help. With her sister’s life in jeopardy, Rose must find a way to rescue her—and perhaps, save herself.
Illuminating some of the most fraught and common issues confronting women, Thin Girls is a powerful, emotionally resonant story, beautifully told, that will keep you turning the pages to the gratifying, hopeful end.
• Bisexual supporting character
• Gay side character
• Lesbian side character
• f/f main romance
• Bulimia (on-page)
• Physical abuse (on-page and off-page)
• Emotional abuse (on-page and off-page)
— Lily’s boyfriend manipulates her into dieting (read starving herself)
• Bullying (on-page)
• Death as a result of an eating disorder (off-page)
• Detailed sex scenes (including Rose walking in on Lily practicing BDSM)
• Explores toxicity of diet culture: fine line between dieting and harming yourself
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
Format: Hardcover
Rating: 5/5 stars
Trigger Warning: This review discusses topics that can be triggering for some. Please read the ‘Possible Triggers’ tab above for details.•••
I was apprehensive starting Thin Girls since so many reviews lament how heart-wrenching the story of Rose and Lily is, but each of those reviews also emphasized how thought-provoking and outstanding the book was. And, Thin Girls was superb… definitely one of my favourite novels of 2020!
Thin Girls follows twins Rose and Lily from infancy to their current age of 24 and details the slow unravelling of Rose’s mental health as she copes with her life by eating less and less… eventually getting to the point where she eats nothing. The book is narrated in Rose’s perspective–the younger twin–and alternates between Rose’s present (working towards getting out of the eating disorder facility to help her sister who is rapidly losing weight) and her childhood with Lily (illustrating their seemingly codependent relationship).
Duality of Twinship
Obviously, the main plot point is Rose’s ongoing anorexia. The entirety of part one is a combination of Rose living in the facility and memories from her childhood, which fleshes out her relationship with her twin sister, as well as Rose’s relationship with food. However, secondary to Rose’s illness is the codependency between Rose and her twin, Lily. Their relationship is complex, a mixture of toxic codependency but, at its core, driven by unconditional love and forgiveness.
The duality of twinship is explored throughout as Rose starts to wake up to her sister’s trauma once it’s displayed in a way Rose can understand: Lily is dramatically losing weight. Interestingly, the twins have dealt with their childhood challenges and traumas similarly, yet different: Rose stops eating, and Lily starts eating more as if to make up for the food Rose won’t eat.
I really enjoyed how the author’s discussion about twinship isn’t restricted to Rose and Lily’s relationship but the psychological development of identical twins: their closeness. Rose and Lily have the ability to know what the other is feeling, emotionally. Rose has an appreciation for all things in nature that represent the closeness she experiences with her identical twin. Yet, perhaps the most interesting aspect of identical twins is where they diverge from another. An influential differentiator between Rose and Lily–besides Lily’s back mole–is their sexuality. Most interestingly, identical twins typically have the same sexuality, yet Lily is straight in Thin Girls while Rose is lesbian.
This means that most identical twins can navigate their romantic lives similarity to how they’ve handled everything else in their lives as identical twins: they are the same. Yet, no matter how much Lily sympathizes, she can never understand how disorienting it is for Rose to feel the way she does, to be so different from her twin sister but also from what society says is “normal.”
Exploration of Queerness
Rose’s journey of her queerness was so well executed. Rose had become so hung up on being identical to her sister that she started to hate the mole that differentiated them and constantly dreamed of becoming one with Lily. Yet, her identical twin was straight, and the only person in her life who could relate to Rose not being heterosexual was her father… who was too ashamed to help.
Society, as Rose demonstrates, constantly infers that to be “normal” is to be straight. Yet, as Rose slowly learns, sexuality is not a choice and not controllable. The slow reveal of her sexuality allowed the reader to focus on her eating disorder (the main point at issue in the novel) but also demonstrates to the reader how her sexuality influenced her eating disorder and vice versa.
Toxicity of Diet Culture
Rose became anorexic because of diet culture. Initially, dieting is by no means thought of as ‘unhealthy’… in fact, many people nowadays still equate it with being healthy! However, the use of the Insta influencer dieting plan, YourWeigh, in Thin Girls illustrates how dangerous and toxic diet culture can be. Social media has made influencers a credible authority on dieting… despite their lack of educational background on nutrition or exercise.
As Thin Girls demonstrates, many dieting programs also reaffirm toxic standards for women: equating self-worth and beauty with thinness. The novel also explores how women’s bodies are represented in media and how these representations can directly negatively influence the lives of women from average girls to the models and celebrities working within the media industry with unattainable standards.
Codependency and Abuse
The most impressive part of Thin Girls was how Rose’s perspective didn’t blind the reader from her bordering-on-abusive moments with Lily; for example, saying she won’t eat until Lily does what she says… how is that any better than Lily’s boyfriend telling her he’ll kill himself if she leaves him? Rose is very aware of how manipulative, controlling, and abusive Phil is towards Lily, but can’t understand how she also attempts to control Lily through her emotions.
The novel also explores the difficulty of trying to get someone to understand they have a problem, which for Rose, is compounded by the fact that she is currently sick and is not working on getting better.
How can Rose tell Lily she should eat when Rose refuses to? How can Rose tell Lily she’s losing too much weight when Rose is anorexic? Rose is uniquely qualified to understand Lily’s spiral, but as Rose slowly learns throughout Thin Girls, to help Lily, she first must help herself.
In Conclusion
Thin Girls was such an amazing book. The writing was beyond expectation–lyrical yet by no means inaccessible. It was beautiful. While the content and plot can be difficult to read–the author, Diana, doesn’t hold back from the realities of having an eating disorder (the extent anorectics will go to not gain weight and the bodily symptoms of slowly starving to death)–Thin Girls felt transformative as it explored the nuances of diet culture: how it can push someone into the abyss of eating disorders.
I’m so impressed and shocked that Thin Girls was Diana Clarke’s debut novel. Her writing was smart, incisive and witty. I loved how the author was able to draw together Rose’s eating disorder, her relationship with her sister and her sexuality with anecdotes from the random books Rose reads. It was so clever and so fresh and made for some fun, quirky moments among the deeper content.
Overall, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Thin Girls!
Buy Thin Girls
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