The innovative format-which tells Jennifer’s story through blank verse and prose, with changes in tense and voice, and uses forms, workbooks, and journal entries-mirrors the protagonist’s progress toward a healthy body and mind. Johnson tells an inspiring story that is based on her own experience of being hospitalized for an eating disorder as a teenager. Using her trademark dark humor and powerful emotion, J.

She has to believe-after many years of being a believarexic. She has to learn to trust herself and her own instincts, but that’s easier than it sounds. As Jennifer progresses through her treatment, she learns to recognize her relationships with food, friends, and family-and how each relationship is healthy or unhealthy. Believarexic, a semi-autobiographic teen fiction of the author's struggle with bulimerexia, gives hope to those who deal with the very issues she overcomes. But when she finally confesses her secret to her parents and is hospitalized at the Samuel Tuke Center, her journey is only beginning. The innovative format using blank verse and prose, changes in tense and voice, and forms, workbooks, and journal entries mirror Jennifer's progress toward a healthy body and mind.Summary Asking for help is only the first step Jennifer can’t go on like this-binging, purging, starving, all while trying to appear like she’s got it all together. Johnson tells an inspiring story based on her own experience when she was hospitalized for an eating disorder as a teenager. She has to learn to trust herself and her own instincts, but that's easier than it sounds. The straight line represents what really happened. I think of it as a sine wave drawn over a straight line. So: the challenge is to tell the truth, without being limited by the truth. But when she finally confesses her secret to her parents and is hospitalized at the Samuel Tuke Center, her journey is only beginning.Īs Jennifer progresses through her treatment, she learns to recognize her relationship with food, and friends, and family-and how each is healthy or unhealthy. Believarexic is an autobiographical novel because it’s the fictionalized story of actual events in my life. Jennifer can't go on like this-binging, purging, starving, and all while trying to appear like she's got it all together.