Review: SAD PERFECT by Stephanie Elliot

Sad Perfect by Stephanie Elliot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sixteen-year-old Pea looks normal, but she has a secret: she has Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID). It is like having a monster inside of her, one that not only dictates what she can eat, but also causes anxiety, depression, and thoughts that she doesn’t want to have. When she falls crazy-mad in love with Ben, she hides her disorder from him, pretending that she’s fine. 

At first, everything really does feel like it’s getting better with him around, so she stops taking her anxiety and depression medication. And that's when the monster really takes over her life. Just as everything seems lost and hopeless, Pea finds in her family, and in Ben, the support and strength she needs to learn that her eating disorder doesn’t have to control her.  

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It’s been quite a while since I read this book, but I wanted to write a review now as I’m currently reading and reviewing a lot of books about eating disorders, and so far SAD PERFECT is the only one that looks at ARFID.

As someone who struggles with disordered and restricted eating, this book really struck a chord. I empathised so much with Pea, the MC, and felt the portrayal of this eating disorder was realistic and informative—it’s not just fussy eating, and this story showed this brilliantly. I especially appreciated how well it included the anxiety-part of ARFID and showed how it can extend beyond just the eating and into any situations that could involve food.

From what I understand, the author’s daughter has ARFID and completed an intensive program just like the MC of this book, so from that point of view, it’s clear the author knows what she’s talkibg about and it is important to her to spread the word about this lesser-known eating disorder and shed some light on it. Yet as I do have disordered eating (which in my case has been triggered by diagnosed of mast cell activation syndrome and coeliac disease, but doctors have referred to it as likely being ARFID) I do wonder how close the representation actually is as it isn’t own voices...and there were a couple of things I didn’t agree with (but whether that’s just individual differences or not is hard to say as everyone’s experiences of eating disorders is different). That’s not to say this is a bad book or anything, because it isn’t!

The imagery in this book is amazing. As is the writing. Some really lovely metaphors. Characterisation was good too, and the author has built the tension and pacing perfectly. The romance was also well done and thought out too.

So the couple things I didn’t agree with/found problematic: firstly,  how it treats other eating disorders. The MC is quite scathing towards the girls with anorexia and bulimia who are also in her support group, and crucially she is not called out about this by the therapist (or the author). This was a little disappointing. The other thing I found (a little) problematic was the ending, but I don’t want to go into that in too much detail because of spoilers. I’ll just say it felt a little rushed, and I interpreted it as almost saying eating disorders like ARFID aren’t serious mental illnesses as they can apparently be treated by a simple changed mindset. Which I get is true on one level, but as the ending felt rushed it seemed the MC’s past struggle was essentially being presented as something the MC caused and chose to have and so it could, as it turned out, be easily fixed (despite the plot sayin otherwise).

Having said all that, I still rate this book very highly, and I read it in less than 24 hours. It’s THAT good.

For anyone who’s reading/studying the portrayal of eating disorders in YA fiction, this is an important read, and I highly recommend it as it’s rare to get a novel looking at the lesser-known eating disorders.