Review: Identical twins veer apart in moving ‘Thin Girls’

“Skinny Girls,” by Diana Clarke (HarperCollins)

Sad, poignant and titillating, Diana Clarke’s “Skinny Girls” is distinct to be now not like one thing else you’ve learn.

Identical twins Rose and Lily Winters are deeply connected, nonetheless in excessive college their relationship begins to develop subtle. Rose’s desperation to be frigid leads her down a unpleasant path of indecent healthy eating notion. Meanwhile, as if to atone for Rose’s weight reduction, Lily begins eating and eating and eating.

Both women struggle with physique and psychological neatly being points neatly into adulthood. Once we meet them, Rose resides in an anorexia rehabilitation facility and Lily has stumbled on herself in an abusive relationship, addicted to a brand fresh and unpleasant fad diet, and in total denial that one thing else in her life desires to commerce.

Alternating between flashbacks and basically the most modern day, “Skinny Girls” is a attention-grabbing epic of the Winters twins’ avenue to recovery as they work to support every other thru problems with physique image, fancy, identification and sexuality.

Clarke succeeds at establishing a yarn that feels wholly weird and wonderful while on the identical time wholly relatable for young females who endure so many of the challenges Rose and Lily face.

With the book’s unlit tone, Clarke has normal a world that feels nearly dystopian, yet its energy lies in the truth that Rose and Lily’s experiences are all too licensed and all too proper.