Have you ever felt like your life wouldn’t be perfect unless you were happy with yourself and you were more confident? Second Star to the Right is a good book to read if you like reading true stories about real problems people face.

Leslie Hiller has a perfect life. She has a loving family, she has a new best friend, she’s smart and talented. But one problem is she hates her appearance and considers herself fat. She has this fantasy in her head that if she goes on a diet and loses a few pounds she will be happy. After a while she is addicted to dieting and starts losing too much weight, which can be considered unhealthy. Throughout the diet and all the weight she has lost she still feels fat and unhappy with her appearance. Will she continue listening to her ‘dictator’ and continue not eating and let anorexia slowly kill her or will she listen to her friends and family who are worried about her and start gaining weight and on the road to recovery.

Personally I didn’t enjoy this book. I couldn’t get into it and it confused me at times. But it gives you insight and helps you learn about the problems that can come with over-dieting and anorexia and the effects that it has on the people around you. If you like true meaningful stories then this is the book for you.

Mallory, Year 9

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Anorexia nevosa. It’s a condition that is developing all around the world in young teenagers. But do we really know how it all starts? ‘Second star to the right’ is a novel that takes us on the ride of having anorexia. If you are interested in gripping real life stories then this is the book for you!

Leslie Hiller is an ordinary girl with a loving family who has recently become best friends with Cavett. Leslie’s mother is kind, caring and loves Leslie to the moon and back. Her father teaches piano to students for a living and also taught Leslie. And Leslie is a talented young teenager with a wonderful life.  But to her, life isn’t as perfect as it seems. She isn’t thin enough even though her weight is average for her age and height. Leslie at one point comes down with a cold and as an after effect, loses a lot of weight. This was the starting point for her ‘diet’. This included eating next to no food, and the food she did eat, she vomited it back up again.

‘Second Star to the right’ showed me what anorexia was really like and showed me how the disease can get out of control. I thought the book was a little sad and upsetting, a bit confronting and hard to read at times but it was an adequate book.

I recommend this book to teen girls between the ages 13 and 17 who enjoy reading novels based real life events. This book is an interesting read. It is informative in an unfortunate but credible way and I recommend girl read this book to show how easily just losing that extra few pounds can transform into anorexia nervosa. I rate this book, 2 out of 5 stars.

Kemi, Year 9

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This book is about a normal 14 year old girl called Leslie. After Leslie changes school to get a new start, she realises that she still isn’t happy. After realising she isn’t happy, she believes its her weight that’s the problem.

Leslie starts to eat less at the start and watches what she eats, then she starts to eat less and less and then she starts to only eat a pack of gum a day and then one day her friend asks for a piece of gum and Leslie gives her the rest of the packet. After that day she doesn’t eat anything. Her parents worry about her, so they send her to get help.

I didn’t enjoy this book as much as some people would because I would rather read a romance novel and this book is about a real life situation which is very serious and dangerous. People should be aware that people are actually starving themselves daily because they hate the way they look. In conclusion, if you think you would like to read this book, then read it. Maybe you would get a better perspective about anorexia and feel differently about that situation.

Crystal, Year 9

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“I want to be a skeleton – but I also want to be attractive. I want to die – but I also want to live.” (Back Cover).

Have you ever wondered what you would be thinking if you had a sickness like anorexia? Well, this book is right up your alley.

Leslie Hiller is a typical girl who changes schools in the fall and knows absolutely no one. Her mother is a stay-at-home mum and her father owns his own piano shop and is a professional pianist. Everyone thinks Leslie is a really talented girl because of her father, but to Leslie, she just feels like she is strange and doesn’t fit in. One day, Leslie finds a girl at her school called Cavett, and they became really good friends. Just as Leslie started to settle into her new school, the school dance was held. She was dreading going to the school dance, but her mum made her go so she could socialise with her new classmates more. So off Leslie went. At the school dance, Leslie felt like everyone was looking at her strange and she didn’t now why. This is where it all went wrong! This is where the real story begins…

‘Second Star To The Right’ is set in New York City and ventures out to all suburbs around it and to the world famous Central Park. I would give this book 2 stars out of 5 because I felt like it was quite confusing and you couldn’t fully comprehend what was happening at a particular time. To me, I felt like this book was hard to read at times and was quite confusing because it kept changing from Leslie talking, to what Leslie was thinking inside her head. I recommend this book to girls aged 13 and over because I felt like it relates to teenage girls, with the changing of themselves physically, mentally and emotionally.

Lauren, Year 9

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“God gave a loaf to every bird,

But just a crumb to me;

I dare not eat it, though I starve – “

‘Second Star to the Right’ by Deborah Hautzig is a story is about an adolescent girl who feels like she has no control over herself or her eating and feels like the only way she can control it is by purposely hurting herself through making herself sick. This book allows us to look at the illness of bulimia and understand the struggles that these adolescents go through.  I didn’t enjoy this book, as I couldn’t connect with the characters or the storyline and rate it a 3 out of 5. I would recommend this book to girls aged between 14 -18 who like more real life stories.

Rebeccah Year 9