Nothing
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
Robin Friedman
Robin Friedman is an advertising copywriter and freelance writer for several newspapers and magazines in New Jersey. The Silent Witness is her first children’s book with Houghton Mifflin.
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Reviews for Nothing
25 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This story is a gripping portrayal of a life spiraling out of control. Parker's frank tone is coupled with free-verse poems from Danielle's point of view, giving us a complete picture of a family falling apart. Parker doesn't know how to ask for help and Danielle, who would help him, has no idea what's going on. Mom and Dad are clueless, especially when Mr. Rabinowitz becomes ill.A Looking-for-Alaska-esque countdown starts on the first page with "88 days before" and helps move the action forward. As the countdown crept down to zero, I found myself racing through the pages to find out what was going to happen. Robin Friedman has created characters that I really cared about and I liked that we get two different perspectives. Parker's voice is urgent and raw while Danielle watches from the sidelines, resenting her brother at times, though she doesn't know what he's hiding.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I didn't connect with this novel at all - the characters were flat, the medical science questionable, and the dialogue/plot twists contrived and cliched - but I blew through it really fast so at least it was a quick read. I just think that, if someone is looking for a nuanced and helpful YA novel about a bulimic young Jewish teenage boy dealing with EDs and parental/societal pressures, you could do better than Nothing. But it could be used as a conversation starter about teenage boys with eating disorders, so it's got that going for it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5r e l a t a b l e :)
Book preview
Nothing - Robin Friedman
For my good friend, Tom Davis,
who told me.
Copyright Information
Nothing © 2008 by Robin Friedman.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Flux, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover models used for illustrative purposes only and may not endorse or represent the book’s subject.
First e-book edition © 2011
E-book ISBN: 9780738722337
Book design by Steffani Sawyer
Cover art © 2008 by Stockbyte/Getty Images
Cover design by Gavin Dayton Duffy
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88 days before
Parker
Puke.
My life is puke.
Literally.
I’m staring at a bunch of puke that used to be one chocolate French silk pie, one blueberry muffin, and two peanut butter cookies, all from Perkins.
Parker!
My sister, Danielle, bangs on the bathroom door. One fourteen-year-old sister, one seventeen-year-old brother, and one cooperatively-shared
bathroom.
I’m almost done,
I call out as casually as possible.
Danielle, grumbling, goes away.
I have to flush twice to get rid of all the puke.
I carefully check my reflection in the mirror. My eyes are red and watery. I meticulously wash my hands and face in the sink, brush and floss my teeth twice, and gargle four times with extra-strength, cinnamon-flavored mouthwash. Then I shove three wintergreen breath mints into my mouth. My pockets hold the world’s record for wintergreen breath mints.
My sister, still grumbling, comes back.
You’re worse than a girl. It’s time to come out and face your public now.
I check my reflection again. The eyes are blue-green; the hair’s the color of orange-blossom honey,
says Mom, like they make in Vermont.
It all fits the name Mom and Dad gave me—except for the dead giveaway of Rabinowitz being my last name.
I open the bathroom door.
At last,
Danielle sighs. Time to make hearts break!
I ignore this comment, shoot past her, duck into my room, and sweep my car keys off my desk.
It happened today because I’d hardly eaten anything.
I tried, but I just couldn’t resist.
When I saw the Perkins, I jammed on my brakes so hard the UPS truck behind me nearly ended up in my back seat.
I hated myself for it.
But everything’s okay now.
I undid the damage.
I flushed it all away.
Danielle
My big brother’s
a breaker-of-hearts.
It’s his talent
and hobby.
Ask any girl
at Livingstone High School.
Sometimes I wonder,
if that’s it
or if it’s
something else
completely.
I also wonder if
the reason people
like me
is because it’s
the quickest way
to get to him.
Parker
I go downstairs. The house is dark and quiet, not a single Jerusalem of Gold sculpture or painting of the Dome of the Rock out of place. Mom and Dad are at the Jewish National Fund’s Tree of Life Gala.
I walk to our four-car garage and get into my black Audi. My parents don’t do Mercedes because of that lingering Jewish stand against the Nazis, but they make an exception for Audi.
I drive the few miles to Foxy’s house. I guess he’s been watching for me, because as soon as I pull into his driveway, he pops out of the front door.
Yo,
he grunts, sliding into the front seat, the whiff of his cologne making my nostrils flare. I crack my window even though it’s February outside, pull off the driveway, and head to the party.
Jarod Fox and I have been friends since we shared a bar mitzvah date when we were thirteen. We’re the same height (six foot one), our families belong to the same synagogue (Temple Shalom), and we take the same classes at school (AP Physics, AP Chemistry, AP Biology, AP Spanish, AP Calculus, AP Statistics).
Foxy plays trumpet in Jazz Ensemble, and is student representative to the Livingstone School Board, vice president of our temple youth group, treasurer of Key Club, and managing editor of The Cellar (the school literary magazine). He’s in Livingstone Chorale, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and Make-A-Wish Foundation.
We’re different in one way. Foxy has had girlfriends.
And the other thing.
Foxy starts messing around with the controls in the car, which I can’t stand, but I let him do it anyway.
Dude, when are you gonna let me drive this baby?
he asks, without expecting a reply, because he continues, I’m asking out Tina Taylor the hot shiksa tonight.
Mazel tov,
I mutter; congratulations
in Hebrew. Shiksa means non-Jewish girl
in Yiddish.
Now that Spaz’s committed,
Foxy goes on.
I frown. I know.
Pete Spazzarini isn’t Jewish. He’s vice president of National Honor Society, vice president of Key Club, vice president of Student Council, and on the forensics team. He’s in Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Make-A-Wish Foundation, and Model UN, and he doesn’t have a problem with being called Spaz.
How are Spaz and I different? He likes building his college resume.
We arrive at the party. It’s at the end of a dirt road, more a compound than a house, with outbuildings and sheds. I guess it’s an old farm of some kind, one of the last remaining pieces of open space in New Jersey. The actual party seems to be in a barn.
I park on the front lawn between two trees, and Foxy and I nonchalantly make our way to the barn. Once inside, we stand around trying to look cool, mostly wondering what we should be doing. I slide three more wintergreen breath mints into my mouth. It takes a lot