By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: August 16, 2012
Enter to win a copy of Alyssa B. Sheinmel’s latest book, The Stone Girl.
From critically acclaimed writer Alyssa B. Sheinmel comes an unflinching and unparalleled portrayal of one girl’s withdrawal, until she is sinking like a stone into her own illness, her own loneliness—her own self.
Giveaway begins August 16, 2012, at 12:01 A.M. PST and ends September 13, 2012, at 11:59 P.M. PST.
Reading level: Ages 12 and up
Hardcover: 224 pages
Overview
She feels like a creature out of a fairy tale; a girl who discovers that her bones are really made out of stone, that her skin is really as thin as glass, that her hair is brittle as straw, that her tears have dried up so that she cries only salt. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t hurt when she presses hard enough to begin bleeding: it doesn’t hurt, because she’s not real anymore.
Sethie Weiss is hungry, a mean, angry kind of hunger that feels like a piece of glass in her belly. She’s managed to get down to 111 pounds and knows that with a little more hard work—a few more meals skipped, a few more snacks vomited away—she can force the number on the scale even lower. She will work on her body the same way she worked to get her perfect grades, to finish her college applications early, to get her first kiss from Shaw, the boy she loves, the boy who isn’t quite her boyfriend.
Sethie will not allow herself one slip, not one bad day, not one break in concentration. Her body is there for her to work on when everything and everyone else—her best friend, her schoolwork, and Shaw—are gone.
About the Author
ALYSSA B. SHEINMEL is the author of two previous novels, The Beautiful Between and The Lucky Kind. She grew up in Northern California and New York, and attended Barnard College. Alyssa lives and writes in New York City. You can visit her on the Web at AlyssaSheinmel.com.
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Giveaway Rules
- Shipping Guidelines: This book giveaway is open to participants in the United States only.
- Giveaway begins August 16, 2012, at 12:01 A.M. PST and ends September 13, 2012, at 11:59 P.M. PST, when all entries must be received. No purchase necessary. See official rules for details. View our privacy policy.
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By Alyssa Sheinmel, for The Children’s Book Review
Published: August 16, 2012
Alyssa B. Sheinmel
I have to admit, I had a really fun time writing The Lucky Kind. Of course it was plagued, from time to time, with bouts of self-doubt, questions over where the story was going and how I was going to get it there, but overall, I look back on the experience of writing that book as a great time. I loved the characters, I loved the voice, the dialogue seemed to crackle and pop as I put it down on paper. Writing The Beautiful Between was difficult, but always exciting, because it was my first novel and there was so much possibility in every new chapter. I didn’t know if I was writing it just for me and me alone or if it would be published.
Writing The Stone Girl, however, was not particularly fun. It was exhilarating, from time to time, because I was writing about things I’d never written about before, going someplace darker and deeper than I’d ever been as a writer. It was thrilling, sometimes, when the words came quickly and I wrote chapter after chapter in rapid succession. But the words never came easily. There were times when I would go weeks and weeks without looking at the book at all.
I came up with the idea for The Stone Girl in a car, driving from the San Francisco airport to the hotel where my then-fiancé and I were planning our wedding. It was a few days before my 28th birthday, a few years since I’d last made myself throw up, and I was reading Blackbird House, by Alice Hoffman, for the first time. Suddenly, in my mind’s eye, I saw a girl, still and silent as a stone, crouched beside a toilet. At once, I knew everything about her. I knew her name was Sarah Beth, but she preferred to be called Sethie. I knew the boy she loved was only half of a boyfriend, and I knew she was destined to be hurt by him. I knew exactly when and how she first learned to throw up. I know she wore her clothes a couple sizes too big so that waistbands and cap-sleeves wouldn’t dig into her skin. I knew that sometimes she wanted to take a knife to her body and cut the fat pieces away.
I began scribbling in the spiral notebook I always take with me when I travel. A few messy pages of notes later, I’d begun writing The Stone Girl. But I quickly put it aside. The Beautiful Between hadn’t even been published yet. I had only just begun writing The Lucky Kind. And did I really want to write a book about a sick, sad, lonely girl anyway?
Whether I wanted to or not eventually became besides the point. I kept thinking about this girl and I kept scribbling notes, typing stray chapters, imagining where her story would take her. I remembered things long forgotten, from the years I spent wrapped up in my own body-obsession: my illogical “fat-free” days,
