Review: A Trick of the Light by Loiz Metzger

Mike Welles had everything under control. But that was before. Now things are rough at home, and they’re getting confusing at school. He’s losing his sense of direction, and he feels like he’s a mess.

Then there’s a voice in his head. A friend, who’s trying to help him get control again. More than that—the voice can guide him to become faster and stronger than he was before, to rid his life of everything that’s holding him back. To figure out who he is again. If only Mike will listen.
 

/From Goodreads/

 

I don't have a whole lot to say about this book, but this doesn't mean it's a bad book. I think that when we think or talk about any kind of eating disorder, majority of people think of girls (or women). This book focuses on eating disorder from a male point of view, and for this it is kind of unique. (Apparently, 10% out of 10 million people with eating disorders in USA are male, and that is not that small of a number.)

 

The writing is not exceptional but it is okay, the characters are not magnificently explored, but again, they were okay for me - it looks like A Trick of the Light was generally somewhere between "meh/okay" category. There was one thing that irked me and it was the fact that the whole dialogue was written like this:

 

Mike: "Things have been kind of weird at home."

Tamio: "Yeah? How so?"

 

I don't know if it is kind of a stylistic intention or not but for me it pretty much translates into a bit of lazy writing.

 

Other than that, I think this book is good for the age group it's targeted to (I'm guessing teenagers), it was a super fast read and made me think of a problem I regularly had not given any thought at all, which is that boys as well can develop eating disorders for pretty much the same reasons as girls (depression, problems at home, social acceptance, etc. etc.)