What it takes to lose

When Eve Allred, a high school junior, loses some weight for the first time, she is intoxicated with the compliments and praise she receives.

Then Ana shows up.

Ana, the beautiful and strikingly skinny girl who seems to come out of nowhere, insists Eve isn’t done losing weight, and for reasons she can’t comprehend, Eve feels an uncontrollable urge to obey her. Ten pounds quickly turns to twenty, which turns to fifty.

Months of hospitalization and rehab later, Eve is ready to get better. But even the smallest tasks prove difficult when Ana, the friend Eve wishes she never had, has other plans. Trying to transition back to her normal life, Eve struggles with repairing broken relationships with friends and family while trying to get back to the normal life she used to know.

Early in her recovery Eve also runs into a boy at school who gives her a tormented, pain-filled gaze that haunts her thoughts. Several more encounters with the boy and the same tortured look make Eve even more desperate to figure out how she is causing this stranger so much pain.

Eve’s struggle to balance everything—the boy, trying to recreate her old life, and vicious Ana—provides a raw look at what recovering from an eating disorder is really like and proves nothing is as simple as it seems.