Title: The best little girl in the world
Author: Steven Levenkron
Publish year: first in 1979
Company: penguin group
Main story: A girl called Francesca is good and tractable, so her parents pay all attention on her sister who always makes a lot of trouble, to get her parents more attention Francesca goes on a diet and wants to
be perfect on dancing, so what Francessa looks on herself is a fat ugly girl which must die for a new girl called Kessa.
Francesca changed her name and keeps avoiding eating and getting thinner and thinner, she even
got worse on her study, her parents began to worry about her and took her to the doctor, noticing that
her parents pay more attention on her that Kessa didn’t want to be healthy. Finally Kessa got anorexia nervosa and was sent to a hospital. With the Psychiatrist Sandy and Dr Gordon’s help Kessa and her
family finally found the real reason of the illness and they brought her to her nomal life.
Main characters:
Francesca (Kessa): a five-foot four, pretty, slim and intelligent girl but she found her
parents pay all the attention on her sister and they show respect on her brother and she thought they
don’t care about her, so she decided to be perfect by dieting, she refused to eating and became worse
and worse that always angry her parents, finally she got anorexia nervosa and was sent to the hospital, with the psychiatrist’s help she found how to be a normal girl that can gets her parents’ attention without being sick.
Sandy: a psychiatrist on anorexia nervosa, he helped a lot on Kessa’s illness, he is the only one that
always pay attention on her and never get angry about her until made her tell him everything, and he
successfully helped Kessa opend her mind and did what she never dared to do before, and of course,
brought her back to normality.
Grace: Kessa’s mother, she was always patient on her children. But she didn’t plan to have Francesca so she always felt guilty on her problem and nearly couldn’t help her.
Harold: Kessa’s father, he is rich but also easily lost control, so he always fight with her daughter
Susanna and neglects Francesca that he almost lost her.
Dr Gordon: Kessa’s personal doctor, she introduced Sandy to the family, and also helped a lot on
Kessa’s physical problem.
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English thought:
It's a warm but sad story to me, a girl, a white girl who lives in Manhattan which is the richest city in the whole America needs something that we would never worry about----- attention!
At first, when the book writes a lot on how Kessa thinks and changes and how she becomes a bad girl, I hated her, yes, it's nomal emotion, we are not her, we can't understand why a girl that owns almost everything that we want but still choose to treat herself cruelly. But think more I will find that she is just a shadow of me, had I ever ignored what I owned? The answer is yes, everyone ignores what they get and wants something more, and to Kessa, all she needs is her parents' attention, it's a small request, but not to her as to be rich, one of the price is to sacrifice your time with your family, and the saddest thing is Kessa saw how her parents treat her sister and brother, they paid almost all attention on her bad sister, maybe this is one of the reasons that she would rather be a bad girl, which girl would like to be lonely?
As she said when she got sicker, her parents finally thought nothing but her, which made her really happy, that explains why she is afraid to get fat, she is just afraid of being healthy that might lose her parents' attention!
But she is lucky, she met a good doctor, with the doctor's help the whole family notices what's wrong with this "perfect" girl, the first part of the book talked a lot about how she fought with her parents, and the other part almost just focus on the doctor and her, with the patience doctor Sandy finally walked into Kessa's heart. Then it also leave us a question, why the parents never went to her heart? The answer is in the book, it's a good book that it tells a lot about the real world, not only in Manhattan, but also around us, how many girls are choosing to be thin? And how many of them that became too thin is because of the family reason? Or what's wrong with the society?
中文感想：
说白了，这是一篇读后感，虽然多年不写读后感什么的了，不过毕竟是第一次全部读完的英语小说，总得写点什么以作纪念。
这个女孩，是不是很有我们生活的影子？她像是结合了两种比较特殊或者我们争执不休却没有很好关注的人——有钱人家却渴望关注的叛逆孩子以及厌食症患者。
前者我们其实讨论的很多，但是又有多少人可以真的为了亲情放弃财富呢，我们往往只会说“啊，这样的小孩要什么有什么，还这么不争气，真是太丢脸了。”，但是很多时候不只是有钱人家的子女，就是那种普通人家，特别是在国内，人们不停地加班工作，忙得团团转，在上海，人们的步子匆忙得可怕，甚至每天早上数不清的车祸堵车，还有有一段时间的“路怒族”，不都是我们为了金钱奔波劳累么！这时再想想，有多久没有和子女好好聊天，那种静下心来朋友一样的畅所欲言，还有和最要好的朋友一起出去，或者只是和父母伴侣的交谈？所以一开始当我们以旁观者的角度看Kessa的心理活动以及她如何违背父母的意愿时我们会很讨厌这个女孩，但是再看看她的父亲，当女儿有挣扎时他总是脾气暴躁，可能这也和他的职业有关，能白手起家做到住进曼哈顿确实不容易，而她的母亲虽然脾气一直很好，但是他们都忽略了一点，他们把所有的精力放在了Kessa姐姐Susanna的身上，这个女孩总是给父母带来麻烦，于是父母总是为了她争执不休，Kessa说白了，从小就住在姐姐的影子下，她努力变成一个很乖的女孩子，渴望父母能以有这样一个完美的女儿而自豪，不过她的愿望没能达成，不过姐姐在不在家，她永远是父母关注的焦点，也就是从那时，认清事实起，恰好就是故事开头，她对于自身的要求，让她觉得自己不够完美，她认为舞蹈老师可以帮助自己成为别人眼里的焦点，于是她决定变瘦，而当她被送去看医生时，慢慢的她发觉父母开始担心自己，文中也有提到她有一阵窃喜，这很好地说明了自己需要的不是变瘦，而是家人的关心，当然，小说后半段没有重点提到父母，她最终还是被关进了医院，认识了一个新的心理医生Sandy，这个心理医生，其实也是新手，他也害怕不能治好这个女孩，毕竟他虽然也是厌食症领域的，但是救治的都是已经送进医院的女孩，所以他也会花很大的精力和耐心去帮助Kessa，可以说Kessa碰到他是一种机遇和幸福。谁都不知道以后的Sandy是不是还会像当时那样那么努力，人是会变的，虽然这不是小说的重点，但是在之前找到的已经非常出名的住在曼哈顿豪华公寓的心理医生的行为中可以看出，如果真的成为某一领域的专家，很有可能会放弃自己当初努力的目标。再回过头来讨论Kessa，她不愿向别人敞开心扉，可能也是因为觉得自己不被任何人认可，她觉得自己既然被世界抛弃又何必让别人来嘲笑自己，抱着这样的心态她在医院里干了很多让人觉得她很讨厌的事情，而事实是她很讨厌医院，她生病只是为了得到父母的关注，所以才会多次恳求医生不要让她增加体重，也会在刚住院时一次次骚扰父母撒谎乞求回家。不过作为小说，作者写这本书是为了献给他的两个宝贝女儿和妻子，也就是说总会有一个完美的结局，就像之前说的，她遇到了一个很好的医生，为了她放弃了自己的家庭时间的好医生，一家人才得以找出问题根源，从而挽救失足的女孩。
另一个方面就是厌食症的问题，作者是这方面的专家，所以很多事情写的是很详细的，不过我并不了解这样的病情也不能妄加判断，只能说就像我不了解，很多人对这种病可能只是知道一个名字，具体的行为他们并不知道，而现实生活中，我们周围的很多女孩，是不是也和Kessa一样嚷嚷着要减肥？这个社会是不是已经畸形了？要将女孩们培养得个个有着魔鬼一样的身材才算美丽，她们不在意自己的身体健康，只求越纤瘦越好，就算在中国，也常常看到女孩们节食，吃减肥药，恨不得自己可以像个国际名模一样。每个人都有自己美丽的一面，却被社会打造成一样的模型，就像在韩国，街上的女孩一眼望去长得一模一样，就算符合了我们所谓的审美观，时间长了，难道没有疲劳效应么？当然好在减肥药不可能像它们宣传的一样如此神奇，节食也不是对于都市快节奏女孩们所能永远保持的方法，因此厌食症现在还不算太广泛，但是即使如此，减肥药中的副作用，长期的节食对身体的损害，又岂能小看？这些女孩子用永远的健康换取了最最短暂的“美丽”，也许这才是作者更想写给女儿们的东西吧？
(Notice: The Chinese thoughts are not the translation of the English!)
