A Trick of the Light

The narrator of this startlingly original book is a voice inside fifteen-year-old Mike Welles's head. At first, the voice seems to be on Mike's side, urging him to be better, stronger -- "infinitely strong." But then it tells Mike to lie (to doctors, parents, teachers), turns him against his friends and toward self-destructive behaviors, and pushes him to work out beyond the limits of his endurance -- and to starve himself. Metzger's compelling psychological drama takes on the subject of a boy with an eating disorder. The narrative voice -- Mike's eating disorder, personified -- is the star of this masterfully written novel, which becomes a horror story of sorts, complete with a two-headed Cyclops (an art project) and a chorus of voices that sound like something out of Harry Potter (but that help to dilute the one, destructive voice). Eventually -- after a hospital stint, group and family therapy, and sustained support from his friends -- Mike begins first to question the voice, then to acknowledge that it "gets [him] to do things he shouldn't. It acts like it's [his] best friend but really it wants to kill him," and finally to find the strength to begin to take a stance against it. "It won't be easy, Mike thinks, but it's a step in the right direction." dean schneider