Feeling for Bones »

Pressurized family dynamics and a dysfunctional church experience force 16-year-old Olivia to seek her own reality. Hounded by the distorted reflections of mirrors, car doors, and shop windows, she sets things in order by papering her bedroom wall with glossy clippings from glamour magazines.

Olivia's baggy clothes and exhaustive calorie scrutiny can't cover up the fact that she is allowing her body to wither away. As she encounters small town prying--and a tighter-than-comfortable rental house--Olivia's escape becomes her art. And her goal becomes the impossible perfection of the airbrushed models on her wall.

Feeling for Bones is Olivia's story as her struggles become more than physical and she is finally led to the answers she was running from all along.

This novel opens a window to the thought processes and struggles of teen and college-aged women who struggle with eating disorders. Young women will find a friend who thinks like they do and mothers will find a compatriot in the battle to help their daughters deal with body image.

Publishers Weekly

Rainy-afternoon readers could do far worse than to curl up with Pierce's treat of a first novel. Pierce, who teaches English at Miami University in Ohio, introduces readers to Olivia, the 16-year-old budding artist who narrates this lush story. Olivia not only takes readers deep into her struggles with anorexia but introduces a rich cast of characters, like her funny, needy little sister, whose birth name is Claire, but who everyone calls Callapher, short for "Calla Flower." With the help of beautiful Mollie, a free-spirited, devout Christian girl who quickly befriends the family, and Margaret, an old, kind, busy-body great-aunt who is always ready with a helping hand, Olivia and Callapher do their best to settle into their new home, nicknamed "The Shoe Box" because of its tiny size. They've just moved to a small town where Mom and Dad try to make a new life after a scandal forces Dad out of his position as pastor of their old church in Ohio. This story is about family, faith, love, starting over and a whole host of life's curve balls, beautifully told by a girl who has endless heart but a tough mountain to climb when it comes to loving herself as is. (May)