‘How to Drop 50 Pounds in 8 Simple Steps’
— Hannah Cohen
Recalling diet books and clickbait website ads about “Health Secrets That Doctors Hate!”, Andy Harper’s striking personal essay blends the “you” reading and the “you” living with an eating disorder and mental illness. Here, you are the person struggling with the ups and downs of your eating habits and relationships. Harper’s use of perspective is arresting and honest, and the prose itself has a chaotic restraint—shorter, commanding sentences juxtaposed with the more enlighteningly long ones, such as “When you run out of money, stay on the road until you think you are going to starve, then go home. Stop drinking.” Like real life, there isn’t a tidy ending or lesson to this story, but rather an understanding of the ongoing self-maintenance after this certain kind of hell.