Looking Good

In Looking Good (1985; currently out of print) by Regina P. Krummel, Ariadne, a 15 year-old girl recovering from a severe case of anorexia nervosa, tells her story in the form of a journal written to her sophomore English teacher.

Like most young girls who experience anorexia, Ari is an upper middle class, suburban white teenager. Her parents, both college professors, are keenly aware of their daughter’s condition, yet they are almost helpless to do anything about it. Ari spends a great deal of the book discussing her ambivalent relationship with her mother, whom she both loves and hates, often at the same time.

Anorexia is an almost exclusively female phenomenon, and Ari’s journal reflects some of the reasons for this gender inequity. Although the book is over 20 years old, the pressures Ari experienced in the early 1980s are identical to the pressures that early 21st century teenage girls face:

• “part of me wanted to be like everyone else, but the other part wanted to be unique and beautiful” (p. 4)


• “how can you grow up in this kind of society, go to school, pledge allegiance…and remain pure?...I have my honest moments, but mostly I’m learning to play the game.” (p. 18)


• “neither [my mother nor my father] can give me what I ache for—that special sense that I am special…I search for models…of success who are flawlessly beautiful and who grab the eye of all the world just because they are themselves.” (p. 22)


• “In this world you need looks or connections, especially if you want a cushy job and you’re a woman.” (p. 24)


• “success…is finally everything—being slim and attractive (that’s female power) and being excellent in school—popular and bright and competitive in athletics and just always sought-after.” (p. 45)


• “In many ways I still see myself (or “identify myself”) only in relation to what guys think of me. Damn it, is there any other way for a woman?” (p. 47)


• “I am really clodlike, clumsy, broad, of short dimension, trying to fantasize and romanticize myself and my aspirations. I scream in terror inside as I look at what I really am.” (p. 74)

Krummel depicts Ari’s anorexia as a result of her obsession “to be somebody—just to be somebody special in this life” (p. 87), to not be just a common woman, but to excel and to be noticed. Thus, anorexia is a disease produced by our social construction of gender and the unrealistic expectations with which young women feel obligated to comply.

Ari’s ordeal is ultimately a quest for identity, an existential struggle. Near the end of the book, she acknowledges that she must create and value her sense of self: “I should like myself and enjoy being inside my ‘me’…and maybe discover a reason for my life in the outside world” (p. 161).

Aside from the practical matter of assembling a class set of this text (since it’s currently out of print), I don’t think Looking Good would work as a core reading assignment for a high school English class—girls might be pulled in by Ari’s story, but I think most boys would, unfortunately, be uninterested or bored.

Jim