Customer Reviews

Mercy, Unbound

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is divided into four parts, the reason I gave it more than one star
was because of the second part. This second part describes the main character's
(Mercy O'Connor) experience at a clinic in New Mexico for anorexics. Not knowing or even
really ever thinking about what goes on at one of these clinics it gave me insights
into a disorder that I have not read much about. Additionally, the second part
had less political commentary than the rest of the book.

This is my main complaint with the rest of the book. The narrative will move along
and then BAM! p. 5-"She(Mercy's Mom) does not believe in God. She said she can't because
if there was a God who could make things better and didn't, then that was a God
was crazy evil sonofabitch...." A few sentences later on the same page BAM! "He(Mercy's
father) was raised in the Midwest on a farm an organic farm, no less....". As an aside here
funny that Mercy's grandparents are organic farmers as her dad describes that his family came
over to the United States due to the "potato famine" in Ireland caused by
phytophthora infestans. Uhhhhh, if it was me and my family had to leave Ireland
because of some fungus I would make sure I would be killing anything that threatened my crops with pesticides.
Anyhow, narrative continues, BAM! p. 11-"Just like the Catholic Church to make a man
the saint of a kitchen. How many men do you know cook?" At least Mercy responds to her mother
that her father does the cooking at home. Narrative continues BAM! p. 12-"That is essentially
what they're doing in Africa. Denying women their reproductive rights. Here in the United States
women died so that other women could have the same rights as men", her mother explains. Alright,
I think I have made my point, God knows the author has made hers.

Mercy thinks she is growing angel wings, I found this distracting. Not only is the reader
trying to figure out why Mercy has anorexia, she comes from a solid family, not sexually abused,
denies that her anorexia has anything to do with onset sexuality, but then the reader has to
deduce why she thinks she is growing angel wings. If the author's point is to get the reader
to think about a lot of things at once she has accomplished her goal. Mercy then inexplicably
is found running around in desert, naked and has blacked out for four days. She is found,
starts eating and regains her memory. Well, I guess if I had a problem and was taken care of by nice
people at the Mabel Dodge Luhan house I might be cured as well. I found part four to be maudlin
and saccharin. A fourteen year old girl may not feel the way I do about this book, but if she is
as smart as Mercy is she will at least see that it is not the book that is described on the back cover.

Lastly, the author is a librarian and I am as well, therefore I was disappointed at some lax fact
checking that occured in the book. Mercy remembers her dead maternal grandfather Max who was an
Amercian soldier. Grandpa Max met Grandma Dottie when Grandpa Max liberated Grandma Dottie at Ravensbruck
concentration camp. Unless Grandpa Max was also a member of the Red Army this could not have happened.
Ravensbruck was a concentration camp for women that was liberated by the Soviets. It is odd that the movie
"King of Hearts" is mentioned and lauded twice in this book. It is a great anti-war movie, but if it were not
for people like Grandpa Max whether he fought for the Americans or the Red Army Grandma Dottie would probably
have died.

If a young library patron wanted a fiction book about a girl with anorexia I am afraid I could not
recommend this one, therefore I will have to find one and read it.

A teenage girl believes she is turning into an angel, wings and all, and--as a consequence--feels she doesn't need food to survive, subsequently refuting all claims that she has an eating disorder. An interesting take on eating disorder, which should have focused more on its central plot, is soon plagued by a lurching attempt to fit in as many controversial and often tangential topics as possible, including AIDS, political legislation, feminism, the Holocaust, homosexuality, abortion, stillbirths, religion, self-injury, and environmental law (in a book only about 160 pages long). This damages both the flow and coherence of the book, which loses itself by the end and has a conclusion too sudden to recover the narrative or satisfy the reader. Antieau's prose relating Mercy's condition itself is jarring and provoking so it's sad that what could have been a haunting portrait of one girl's journey of self-discovery and rebirth is instead clouded by a host of distractions.

Mercy can't seem to make her parents understand that her refusal to eat isn't anorexia or bulimia, or any other sort of eating disorder. She simply doesn't need to eat. Because only when she stops eating completely will she finally turn into an angel, and can help correct the world's many problems.


But when her parents ignore her wishes, despite the fact that Mercy claims to feel her wings, and take her to a treatment center, Mercy becomes frightened. The other girls are really sick, and their thoughts and ideas on food scare her, and when tragedy strikes, Mercy's resolutions and beliefs about her condition will be put to the test.


Mercy, Unbound was a peculiar, yet very absorbing read. It neither bashes nor condones eating disorders, but is instead a look at one girl's struggle to overcome the crushing feelings of helplessness as to how to solve the world's many problems. Packed full of pop culture references, allusions to great works of literature, historical facts, and many modern social problems, this is a read for the slightly more mature and well read teen. Despite this fact, story moves fluidly rather than didactically, flitting between Mercy's point of view and her diary entries, making the account of her experience more personal, but also a testament to Antieau's remarkable writing abilities as she seamlessly weaves words together to create a read that will engulf the reader entirely.

This isn't really a book about anorexia, as I expected it to be. Oh, it is that too, as the main character has atypical anorexia, but mainly it is a book about being young and overwhelmed with the world's problems. It is a wonderful story of growth, and of dealing with pain.

I read it all in one sitting, and I'm now pushing it at several friends I have. If it had been availiable in translation in my primary language, I can think of even more people who could use a dose of Mercy, Unbound.

This has probably been one of my favorite books that I have read in the past six months. And, mind you, I have read my fair share of books. This particular book happened to catch my eye in the young adult section of the Tenafly Public Library. The blurb (back cover of the book), I found particularly intriguing. And to be honest, I have never read a book anything like it. Which is a good thing. I know I'm not the only one who has picked up a book that was nothing special and then later read something almost exactly like it. I would strongly recommend this book to girls over the age of 14. (Mostly because of all the cursing that is done by some of Mercy's friends.) I certainly enjoyed it.

Simply, almost cruelly put, this book is a failure. It clumsily strives to engage the young reader in a dialogue about eating-disorders ... and only succeeds at thoroughly confusing its audience. Let's begin with its "cardinal sin" ... in NO way can a young adult relate to the main character, Mercy. She has been raised by former hippies (Mom is a whacked-out environmental lawyer, Dad does the cooking). Fine. But ... she is a non-practicing Jew who chants "Om Tara tu tare ture" on her japa mala (Tibetan), is questioning her sexual identity, has a dead brother, thinks she's transforming into an angel (no joke), develops amnesia (no joke), has a grandmother who suffered through a WWII concentration camp ... and her character becomes more and more removed from reality as the story progresses. Mercy is a complete aberration. Where does a teen find her/himself in this odd construction? Good question.

At points it becomes difficult to discern if this text is focused on the AIDS crisis, on WWII concentration camps, or on feminism. I see what the author was trying to achieve, but it's artless. While a skillful writer could weave these thoughts into a coherent text (if need be), Antieau awkwardly stacks these topics on top of one another ... The result reads like a complete lack of focus. And, again, if the text wants to illuminate this topic for young people, why not keep the focus as narrow as possible.

Antieau references obscure material with which even some Ph.D. candidates are unacquainted. Foremost, she frequently weaves Mary Wollstonecraft (late Eighteenth-Century feminist) and Mary Shelley (early Nineteenth-Century Gothic novelist) into the text. Their incorporation seems more the "inside-joke" of a pompous grad-student than a genuine attempt to reach-out to young people. Second, she all-too-often compares the emaciated girls/women of The Mercywood Clinic to the zombies of Romero's "Day of the Dead." A B-film from 1985, most of my undergraduate film-studies students have never even seen this work ... let alone a ninth-grader (the target audience for this text). Likewise for references to Forman's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975) and frequent allusions to "The Twilight Zone's" episode #73 "It's a Good Life" (1961). And, this is JUST the beginning! (I am not even going to launch in the gratuitous mention of Kate Wilhelm, Margaret Sanger, Sappho, Georgia O'Keefe, Carl Jung, Franz Kafka, et al). At worst, it appears that this author seems rather insecure of her own education/knowledge of pop culture ... and feels compelled to slam everything she knows into this minuscule book. At best, she is shockingly inept at reaching young-people.

Antieau's use of profanity is both awkward and unnecessary. Simon & Schuster has placed this text in their "Simon Pulse" division: one AGAIN aimed at "young adults." However, Antieau peppers her text so thoroughly with every vulgarity imaginable, I don't imagine too many parents would be amenable to having their children bombarded with such words. And, though I personally do not object to the language, I find it stilted and a transparent effort to connect to a younger audience. It's a cheap ploy.

As a college instructor, I am always searching for texts to recommend to my students both in and out of class (read both "academically" and when "emergency" dictates). Under no circumstances would I ever suggest this text to a suffering student or even for class analysis. Like the librarian below, I am back to searching for another text on this topic.

This girl keeps thinking that she is an angel which had no point to the story. It made a treatment facility for eating disorders as a way to just ask on your eating disorder and not show how treatment can help you. The end of the book makes no sense at all---she loses her memory and then when regains it she is recovered from eating disorder. completely unrealistic.

Mercy is a fifteen year old girl with an eating disorder; she's on the verge of starvation when her parents send her to a treatment facility in New Mexico. But these facts, clearly evident to the reader, allude the patient in question.

Kim Antieau has created an incredible novel narrated by Mercy. Seen through her eyes, her warped, diseased perspective, Mercy is not sick. She doesn't need treatment. Her problem? No one believes what she holds to be true. Mercy is an angel-in-disguise whose wings are always days away from sprouting on her back. She feels the wings itching beneath the surface. She sees the world differently. She feels that once she is an angel she can help people...she could help ease some of the world's pain. As a human, she's useles...but as an angel there's endless possibilities for her to change the world. Food just stands in the way of her destiny. Angels don't eat. And she is almost there. If only people wouldn't pressure her, they would see the truth...

Mercy's breakthrough from almost-insanity to recovery leads the reader on an exciting, realistic journey of the psychological impact of eating disorders.