Hunger (Riders of the Apocalypse) [Paperback]

Jackie Morse Kessler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 18, 2010 | Series: Riders of the Apocalypse

"Thou art the Black Rider. Go thee out unto the world."

Lisabeth Lewis has a black steed, a set of scales, and a new job: she’s been appointed Famine. How will an anorexic seventeen-year-old girl from the suburbs fare as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?

     Traveling the world on her steed gives Lisa freedom from her troubles at home—her constant battle with hunger, and her struggle to hide it from the people who care about her. But being Famine forces her to go places where hunger is a painful part of everyday life, and to face the horrifying effects of her phenomenal power. Can Lisa find a way to harness that power—and the courage to fight her own inner demons?

     A wildly original approach to the issue of eating disorders, Hunger is about the struggle to find balance in a world of extremes, and uses fantastic tropes to explore a difficult topic that touches the lives of many teens.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up–Suicidal, anorexic Lisabeth thinks she is hallucinating when Death (who looks a lot like a certain dead grunge rock star) rings her doorbell, hands her a set of scales, and informs her that she is now one of the four riders of the Apocalypse–Famine, specifically. When ignoring the scales and the giant war horse grazing in the front yard doesn't work, Lisabeth takes up the mantle of Famine and rides out to areas marked by the excess of gluttony and decimated by starvation. It's not long before she learns how to spread hunger and discord, and maybe even how to balance the scales in the areas of the worst suffering. She meets fellow riders–War, who encourages her destructive tendencies, and Pestilence, who councils her to find balance because, “Well, if everyone dies, I'd be out a job, wouldn't I?” At the heart of this slim novel is a teen struggling with serious food issues, and the storytelling is both realistic and compassionate. If the metaphor of an anorexic as Famine is obvious, the writing is never preachy, and it allows an interesting exploration of both intensely personal food issues and global ones. This book has an excellent hook and is short enough to recommend to reluctant readers.–Caroline Tesauro, Radford Public Library, VAα(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From Booklist

Seventeen-year-old Lisabeth is fighting a series of demons the only way she knows how: by refusing to eat. Her cold, acerbic mother; distant father; and friends who disapprove of her and each other all trigger her inner Thin Voice, which derides food, confirms her fatness, and shames her into the control necessary to reject food. As she sinks deeper into anorexia, she summons Death, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who in turn assigns her a black steed and a scale and transforms her into Famine, another of the Four Horsemen. Kessler has written an unusual allegory about eating disorders, one that works on several levels. As Lisabeth gallops across the world, she witnesses examples of both gluttony and starvation. Using her newfound power, she combats famine, visits horror upon the privileged, and strives to bring balance to the world, all while ignoring the need for balance in her own life. Kessler offers a refreshingly new approach to the YA eating-disorder genre that reinforces the difficulty of conquering these diseases. Grades 7-10. --Frances Bradburn

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Age Range: 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 180 pages
• Publisher: Graphia; Original edition (October 18, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0547341245
• ISBN-13: 978-0547341248
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (114 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #206,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Some kids want to grow up to be doctors, or movie stars, or political assassins. Me, I wanted to draw comic books. Not Archies, either--superhero comic books. Maybe it was all the heavily muscled guys in spandex...

Around the time I was 15, I realized that as much as I enjoyed drawing (note that I'm saying nothing about the quality of those pics), it was a lot of fun putting words in the characters' mouths. I didn't know the term 'fanfic' back then, but I started writing stories about the X-Men, Alpha Flight, and the Teen Titans. Didn't do anything with those stories, other than horrify my mother. She asked why I couldn't write nice stories, you know, about bunnies. Nope--me, I wanted to write about power. About magic. About hot guys in spandex. And about beating those guys bloody and senseless. (In retrospect, maybe I really did want to horrify my mother. Hey, not my fault. When I was a kid, I busted her doodling on the cover of New Teen Titans Number 6. Argh!)

So maybe it's ironic that the book I wound up writing had nothing to do with overly muscled men and everything to do with scantily clad women. (Well, temporarily scantily clad.) Oh, right, and demons.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Great portrayal of eating disorders, mediocre story October 19, 2010

By small review

Format:Paperback

Teenager Lisabeth Lewis is anorexic, and she is also Famine, one of the famed Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. As she fights against coming to terms with her eating disorder, Lisabeth travels around the world as the Black Rider using her scales to grant and withhold food from people. Each of the Four Horsemen make an appearance, while Lisabeth's mother, father, boyfriend, and two best friends round out the story in Lisa's human life.

The idea for this story is phenomenal, but the execution is uneven. The real life part of the story where the reader is taken through Lisabeth's daily routine struggling with the Thin Voice is written exceptionally. The Thin Voice Lisa hears in her head constantly criticizes her and urges her deeper and deeper into anorexia. The inner torment Lisa goes through, combined with the effects her eating disorder is having on her body, is described in a searing and brutally honest manner. Any glamour or control associated with eating disorders is stripped away, leaving behind only the ugly truth. Lisa's friend Tammy's experiences with bulimia are equally vivid and horrifying.

As a novel about eating disorders, Hunger is top notch. I would even go so far as to say this is the most honest and accurate portrayal I've seen of both the physical acts, and, even more importantly, the psychological torment a person with an eating disorder of this magnitude experiences. The author's note at the end of the book explains the author's personal experiences with eating disorders, and this explains the notable honesty and accuracy in the book. This alone is an achievement and makes Hunger a significant book.

Unfortunately, the rest of the book is not up to par. The fantasy elements are poorly developed and, as a result, the plot is convoluted. I'm still not completely sure how the power of the Four Horsemen work, what makes a person suitable for their roles, what their roles are, and how they work in the world. Are they forces of good, evil, both? The personalities of the other Horsemen are equally vague and inconsistent. In many ways, the three other Horsemen are extreme caricatures, which doesn't line up with Lisabeth's personality if she, too, is a qualifying Horseman.

Death, the most fleshed out of the remaining three Horsemen, is a strange mix of modern and old, which could make sense if he didn't feel so gimmicky. His speech was contrived and irritated me. He read like the creation of a teenager's: over-done, poorly written, and trying much too hard to appear "totally cool." The allusions to a certain angsty deceased grunge rock star made this character especially cheesy and eye-roll inducing. He just didn't work for me at all.

The other weak point of the book is the constant messages. The fantasy elements are used to help Lisabeth come to terms with her eating disorder, but because the fantasy elements are so weakly defined, the metaphors fall flat. Despite the tenuous connections, the messages are obvious, *too* obvious, and are really beaten to death. Ultimately, the points are made (and they are good points), but they are not made subtly or effectively.

I wish the author had spent as much time and effort on the fantasy elements of the story as she did on the realistic eating disorder parts. If she had, then this book would have been amazing and a true achievement. Instead we get a superb vignette surrounded by a mediocre and amateurishly written story. I hope the author puts more effort into developing the fantasy aspects in future installments of this series.

This is the first book in a series of, presumably, four books. Even though it's a part of a series, this book can easily be read as a standalone book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Food and Famine Conflict August 9, 2010

By Sarah W VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler is an intriguing look at what would happen if a seventeen year old girl suffering from anorexia was deemed one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. If she was in fact, named Famine.

While I found this book a tad too short to really be able to dig into the story, I liked its brisk pace. From the moment Lisa unwittingly accepts the calling as Famine (an event she is sure she dreamed up) to the very end when she finally has a better understanding of what it means to be hungry and to face truly difficult eating decisions daily.

Lisa faces a Thin Voice each day as she decides what not to eat. She is helped in her sickness by her friend, Tammy, who is bulimic. There is one scene in particular, where Lisa (as Famine) watches while Tammy purges. It is horrifying but extremely realistic and scary. Kessler is a strong writer and her impressions of eating disorders and famine itself seem spot-on, both filled with humanity, hurt, and fear. However, I felt like there was a tad too much crammed into this slim novel. Famine, a huge topic all on its own, being pushed against eating disorders, another huge and delicate topic, well, it felt like too much. I couldn't really dig into either of Lisa's personas.

I liked the otherworldly aspect to the story, how Jackie Morse Kessler changed the typical YA eating disorder to something more unique but I needed something with a bit more heft. I also felt the ending was rather abrupt and too easy. However, this book definitely had some elements I enjoyed, particularly the glimpses of the other horsemen and their interactions with Famine. Perhaps there is humanity even in the worst of apocalypses.

Hunger was a quick read. It did not fully satisfy but it honestly didn't let me down either. Lisa definitely learned some important lessons throughout the book, even if they only skimmed the surface at times. Not a terrible book by any means but I certainly would have enjoyed a bit more! It was definitely more of a bite than a full course meal unfortunately but perhaps fitting for its subject matter.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Gave it to my tween daughter to read... June 24, 2010

By Paul Gifford VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I gave this book to my 12 1/2 year old daughter to read. She is an avid reader who reads above her age and I thought the book, while targeted at older kids, would not be inappropriate for her. It wasn't a bad decision.

She really enjoyed the book. It wasn't non-stop action but there was enough to keep her turning the pages, and at less than 200 pages she finished it in an afternoon. Though my daughter is not anorexic she felt she could relate to the main character and the struggles she faced, both with herself and in the things she sees as Famine.

I asked my daughter what she took away from the book and she said, "anorexia sucks and I hope I never get it." She said she was also now more aware of the plight of starving people elsewhere, like in Africa. And as another reviewer suspected, my daughter had never heard of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse so it was educational in that regard as well.

My daughter didn't feel the tone of the book was preachy, in fact, she's going to re-read the book because she enjoyed it and wanted to be sure she didn't miss anything. In her opinion this book is good for 13 and up. There's some swearing ("no f-word but the s-word and b-word") and no sex, just an implication that a Horseman and Horsewoman hooked up.

I think the length of this book will make it more accessible to teens who aren't big readers, and the imaginative plotline will get them to finish it. My daughter thoroughly enjoyed it and came away with understanding of a big problem facing teens (anorexia) and the world (starvation). That sounds like a win all the way around!