Paperweight by Meg Haston

Paperweight by Meg Haston
Pages: 288
Release Date: 2 July, 2015
Rating:💜💜💜💜💜
Buy it: Amazon | Book Depository
Stevie is trapped. In her life, in her body, and now in an eating-disorder treatment center. Life in the center is regimented and intrusive, a nightmare come true. But what no one knows is that Stevie doesn’t plan to stay that long. There are only twenty-seven days until the anniversary of her brother Josh’s death—the death she caused. And if Stevie gets her way, there are only twenty-seven days until she, too, will end her life.


A major trigger warning for this book: there are in depth descriptions of therapy, multiple people with eating disorders, assault and slight homophobia.

This book was ugly in a beautiful way; it took a broken girl and tried to fix her even though we knew she had limited time left. You couldn't help but get attached to Stevie from the start because you can feel how broken she is and I spent the whole book wanting to protect her.

The characterisation of Stevie was so perfect fro this story because it didn't present her as a skinny girl who was shy and bullied and didn't eat to lose weight. Instead Haston showed another side of people who have eating disorders, as a person who had started to control their eating due to the lack of control she had over the rest of her life. The descriptions of Stevie's life were so raw and graphic that there were times where I felt truly exhausted as I felt like I was going through what Stevie was going through. The descriptions of her therapy were especially hard to read, and there is one scene in particular that still haunts me. I'm not sure if this is an own voices novel, and if it isn't then Haston has an incredible way with words.

My favourite part of Paperweight was the focus on relationships and its impact on Stevie's eating disorder. She developed wonderful relationships with both Ashley and Anna, showing people who are in this situation that not everyone is against them. I especially loved that there was such a positive relationship between Stevie and Anna because so much of teenage media has a negative outlook on therapy, which is not healthy for our current society.

The ending caught me off guard, even though you pretty much know what is going to happen from the start, and it made me bawl for several hours. Maybe it was Stevie's actions or the reactions of everyone around her that got to me but I was really hit hard by the last chapter of this book, and fell into a semi reading slump for a week or two. I wish I could go back in time and read this book for the first time all over again because it was honestly so incredible and one of my favourite reads of the year.