On the Spectrum

September 25, 2017
Sixteen-year-old Clara Singerman’s mother is a famous New York City ballerina, and Clara has long suffered from feelings of inadequacy trying to emulate her, resulting in an obsession with healthy eating and exercise. Following a meeting with a social worker concerned about Clara’s well being and a Twitter war with a guy she met at a party, Clara accepts an invitation to join her remarried father in Paris for the summer. But Paris presents new challenges: Clara is in charge of caring for Alastair, her six-year-old autistic half-brother, while living in a small apartment with a father she barely knows and a stepmother who has questionable ideas about how to raise a child with a developmental disorder. Then Clara meets 20-year-old Michel, an apprentice in his father’s bakery below the apartment. Michel’s passion for good food and Alastair’s blunt honesty force Clara to take a hard look at her orthorexia. A brisk pace and pervasive sense of hope and optimism propel Gold’s dreamy novel. The contrast between Clara’s sharp wit and Alastair’s matter-of-factness adds levity to a well-told and timely tale about love, patience, and acceptance. Ages 12–up.

August 1, 2017

Gr 7 Up-Clara is the daughter of a beautiful, famous, and thin prima ballerina. Clara has been raised by her single mother to fear junk food, and by 17 has developed an obsession with "clean" eating and exercise that is symptomatic of an eating disorder called orthorexia. With the hope that distance from her normal routines will help Clara develop a healthier relationship with food, Clara's mother sends her to live in Paris for the summer, where Clara's father and stepmother could use some help with Alistair, the teen's six-year-old half brother who is "on the spectrum." Most of the book revolves around Clara getting to know this side of her family and building a relationship with Alastair. Clara shows him how to face his fears and teaches him to better understand the world. In turn, the sweet and honest young boy helps Clara overcome her own fears about food. The setting plays an important role in the story, as Paris is known for its culinary delights and its food-loving residents. It also provides a fun backdrop for Clara to have some cultural adventures and-of course-meet a cute boy. This is a light but poignant read. Most characters are well developed, and Gold handles the topics of being on the autism spectrum and orthorexia nervosa competently and sensitively. VERDICT Recommended as a general purchase for school and public libraries seeking light contemporary fiction that covers more than just romance.-Liz Overberg, Zionsville Community High School, IN

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2017
A teenage girl with an eating disorder spends a summer abroad with her autistic brother.Sixteen-year-old Clara lives in New York City with her mother, a beautiful and famous ballerina. From when the white girl was in preschool on, her mother has enforced draconian rules about food, and as Clara ages, her obsessive thoughts manifest themselves into orthorexia, a disorder defined by obsession with healthy diet and behaviors. With her new diagnosis and following an overblown social media kerfuffle, Clara decides to spend the summer in Paris with her estranged father and autistic 6-year-old brother, Alastair (both white). While there, she meets Michel, a handsome pastry chef with light-brown skin, whom she immediately falls for. At times, Clara's disorder is underplayed: who could argue with wanting to eat healthy? However, when she goes on a romantic dinner date with Michel at an upscale Parisian restaurant, it becomes glaringly obvious how pervasive and destructive orthorexia can be when she is nearly paralyzed at their table. Many of Clara's relationships--with her parents, with her brother, and with Michel--feel tidily one-dimensional, but for those willing to overlook this, there is just enough Parisian-tinted romance and low-caliber angst to make serious topics feel breezy and approachable. A light examination of the intersection of two disabilities with family dynamics, with a sweet splash of page-turning melodrama. (Fiction. 12-16)

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