Louder than Hunger

Even though he likes helping people, Jake -- who avoids kids his own age, mirrors, and food -- must learn to help himself when the destructive voices inside get to be too much, in this verse novel about managing and articulating pain and embracing self-acceptance and love.

But another voice inside me says,

We need help.

We’re going to die.

Jake volunteers at a nursing home because he likes helping people. He likes skating and singing, playing Bingo and Name That Tune, and reading mysteries and comics aloud to his teachers. He also likes avoiding people his own age . . . and the cruelty of mirrors . . . and food. 

Jake has read about kids like him in books — the weird one, the outsider — and would do anything not to be that kid, including shrink himself down to nothing. But the less he eats, the bigger he feels. How long can Jake punish himself before he truly disappears? 

A fictionalized account of the author’s experiences and emotions living in residential treatment facilities as a young teen with an eating disorder, Louder than Hunger is a triumph of raw honesty.