The Use Of Dual Protagonists In Ibi Kaslik's Skinny

Literary Analysis Second Draft About thirty million people in the United States suffer from an eating disorder, so what is it like to feel that way and how does their family feel while trying to help? In Skinny by Ibi Kaslik, Giselle is a college student who sufferes from anorexia nervosa while her sister, Holly, is a high school student athlete that is attempting to juggle school, track, and helping her sister recover without a relapse. Ibi Kaslik uses dual protagonists in Skinny to portray the ways that eating disorders affect both the people who suffer and those who try to help. By using dual protagonists, we can see what two different people are thinking about in the same situation. When Giselle gets to go home at the beginning of of

Towards the end of the book, we see how concerned Holly is for her sister. “See, all I want for my sister, Giselle Vasco, to get better and be a doctor or do whatever it is she wants. I just feel like no one in this house can live their lives until she gets better” (Kaslik 219). Holly not only shows concern for her sister, but she also states how she feels that Giselles failing recovery is giving a harsh affect on all three of them in the house. Next, we see Giselles point of view on this situation and what response she sees her family giving to her while she's in the hospital again. “She hands me an apple and three more cookies. I look at her despairingly. Feeling sorry for me, she cuts up the apple and we share it” (Kaslik 216). Giselle knows that her sister feels sorry for her, but it is not helping her recovery because it is making her feel more guilty and doesn't want her sister to feel the need to help her. Both Giselle and Holly are under a large amount of pressure over the same thing, but the reason is different for both of them and Giselle doesn't want her sister to feel the need to worry about