Best Little Girl in the World

[dice]

Has anyone read it? Thoughts/opinions?

[kessa-katonah]

This was one of the first books I read about the subject. I have to admit, it's a favorite. I will say that it's a bit cliche, but I found it quite helpful at the time.

[KESSIA]

I've read it when I was alot younger and have read it several times since, I really like it, it appealed initially because the main character "Kessa Dietrich" did ballet (I love dance). Obviously it's a fictional story but the author is a psychiatrist, I don't know if it's himself he's portraying in the book but I sure wish I had a therapist like "Sandy Sherman".

[AmyG]

This was also one of the very first books I read about a girl with an eating disorder.I raed it a few times after my ED really developed. If I remember correctly the first time I read it I may not have even been sick yet.

The author - Steven Levenkron IS NOT one of my favorite people. Yet, that is for personal reasons. Lets just say I worked with him in the past and it was not a good experience.

[fencingfrog]

i liked the book, but it scared me. my little sister's name is francesca louise! if she starts calling herself kessa ill freak out. :cheesy
i thought it was good, but kessa/francesca recovered amazingly quickly. seems a little "too perfect" i guess.

[Hamsa]

I'm going to have to agree with AmyG: Steven Levenkron is not a psychiatrist, the extent of his education is a master's degree. I worked with him for a year and let's just say it wasn't helpful.

As for the book - I liked it when I read it, but thinking about it now, I think he went a bit too far with it.

[fennigerlopez]

I liked it, but it was really stereotypical.

[annastarlet]

I thought it was very triggering.

[Sylphlover]

"my little sister's name is francesca louise! if she starts calling herself kessa ill freak out."

Oh my gosh :muhaha

Honestly: this was the first book I ever read about anorexia. It was triggering to me. If I am not mistaken the author is the one who treated Karen Carpenter.

[ItWasReal]

:hugon Slyphlover :hugoff

Honestly: this was the first book I ever read about anorexia. It was triggering to me. If I am not mistaken the author is the one who treated Karen Carpenter.



I was thinking the same thing about him treating Karen Carpenter.

It was the first book I read about EDs, too. I hadn't developed one at the time and I remember being pretty young and romanticising the situation and 'Kessa'. It was certainly triggering and now seems to me to be very much an ego trip on Steven Levenkron's part.

[AmyG]

Yes, he did treat Karen Carpenter and he is very proud of that. He has a very high ego!

[running mama]

Oh shucks, I really like his books. His Anatomy Of Anorexia seems pretty well done, though I am only a few chapters into it. I gather that Steven is nothing at all like Sandy Sherman?

[running mama]

He does mention in another book that he had only one fatality. That must have been Karen. Why would one be proud of treating someone who ultimately ended up dead?

[Tsunade]

Yeah, he did a GREAT job with Karen.

[MongrelCat]

Yeah, I've heard a TON of bad things about Steven Levenkron from patients and colleagues. Mostly about him being a narcissistic asshole w/ a God complex. :muhaha

He puts himself in his novels, like Best Little Girl in the World, and then portrays himself as this therapist mastermind who can magically heal people in like, a month. Because he's just THAT GREAT.


Y'all made me laugh w/ the Karen Carpenter thing.


Like everyone else it seems, this was the first book( or second? I might've read Fat Chance first) about EDs I read. I was getting into gymnastics again and was...heavily restricting and this book really *inspired* me. Really glamourized it in my mind. In my mind, it was like, yeah I'll just starve for as long as I want and then get better whenever I want. It was like a game.

Hm. Sure it's a game! It's like Monopoly! Except instead of losing money you lose pieces of your soul.

[paintbox]

Yes, he did treat Karen Carpenter and he is very proud of that.

Good job there, Steven :sleepy :mad

[ilyforever]

like a lot of you guys it was the first eating disorder book i read, it was about two-and a half- years ago and i remember thinking "This girl is crazy!!!" .... ironic:shy

[paperdoll]

This was the first book about ED's that I read too... I also found it to portray an ED as an "open-and-shut" illness... Kessa just starts her ED one day, and then with the right therapist, is magically cured.

I think he came accross very arrogant even in the book!!

My former T has met the author before, and she said she didn't like him either!! :muhaha That he does think very highly of himself, I think ppl above have given accurate descriptions!!


:confused I wonder why he is so proud of treating Karen Carpenter?? Probably just because she was a celebrity and a "famous anorectic".

[sprecato_vita]

It was a little bit too TV movie ish, hence them making a movie about it.
I did like it, but I think it was more the anorexia liking it, and not really me.
He did seem full of himself in the book, and I have heard terrible things about him. I thought it was a bit much that he was bragging that he'd only lost one patient. That was such a turn off that I actually put down Anatomy of Anorexia. Haven't even finished it.

[dice]

I was just going through an old stack of books of mine and I found it. I was thinking about how this was the first piece of literature that opened my eyes to the ED world. At the time, food was nowhere close to becoming an issue or coping mechanism. Yes, I had body issues like many preteen/early teen girls, but I didn't relate them to my eating.

A part of me hates myself for opening it up and reading it. I mean, it's like "duh" I would have learned about EDs from exposure to reality anyway, but what if I hadn't had such an "inside" perspective right off the bat?

Hmm... I don't know...

[Rayneonthemoon]

This was also one of the first books I read .. And for a while I very much liked the book, that was until I moved on with my own recovery and realized how littleI liked it, and infact it actually angered me because I found it to be stereotypical.

A little later down the road, I read the sequel to the book, "KESSA", and from what I remember I liked that much better (although it's been years since I've read either, so I don't remember very much of them)

IMO, there are much better books to spend your money on :ummm

[Lesmarie]

I have heard this book called the "anorexics bible" because it glamourizes eating disorders and teaches people how to do it. I don't recommend it for anyone (it taught me most of what I learned about starving), and I would also like to point out that Steven Levenkron does not even have a MSW. He has an M.S. and is in no way a doctor (though many online sites call him one). I worked with him for a very unsuccessful two years before it became clear that I HAD to leave. I have since recovered COMPLETELY and wish I hadn't wasted those two years of my life. Let's just say that he was less than professional with me on many occasions (one of which was when I told him that I wanted to try seeing someone else...clearly it wounded his over-large ego).

[AmyG]

I first read it many years back and wished I had a therapist like the one portrayed in the book. My wish came true and for a while the author was my doctor. Not going into too many details but it was not a good thing. He once told me I was chronic and would never get well. Gee, thanks doc!

I haven't seen him in seven years and am doing so much better now.

Back to the book. It was decent but looking back I think it can be triggering in terms of behaviors, weight, calories and more.

[Jubellee]

That is such a shame, AmyG.

I read "Best Little Girl in the World" many years ago and fantasized about Sandy Sherman being my doctor. I felt that I couldn't recover if I didn't have him as my treating therapist. I even seriously contemplated moving to NY just so I could see Steven Levenkron. Sad, I know...:ummm

Actually I think what is sadder, there is a part of me that still thinks that. :ugh

[AmyG]

JUbellee,

I know he sounds like the wonder therapist in the book but remember it is just a book. Also, it is fiction. When you think that he would be the one to make you better remember that no matter how good someone sounds from a story they aren't the same person. When I was doing poorly he also told me I was bringing his practice down. Nice, huh?

[Lesmarie]

Jubellee and Amy,

He told me that I was an "amateur" anorexic, that I should go on the Atkins diet (I was starving myself at the time) so that I wouldn't get fat, and he pulled out pictures of past patients (undressed, in only their underwear) so that I could see what "sick" really looked like.

There was more to consider, but I'll leave it at that for now.
~Leslie

[SpazticBallerina]

I've never met the author personally, but I hated the book. I thought it was so obviously written by a therapist, because it didn't at all read from the point of view of an eating disordered person. "Kessa" was always like "I feel [insert list of symptoms straight off WebMD here]." It pissed me off because it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, whether about being eating disordered or recovering from an eating disorder.

I read his other book, too, about the figure skater who cuts herself (I can't recall the name of the book). It was only moderately better. I am not impressed with his writing at all.

[lilsweetie]

i really liked it, but i read it when i was a lot younger. i would probably still like it now but only because it reminds me of my younger days.