Stick Figure Book Report
Stick Figure
The book which I will be talking about, is an autobiography, Stick Figure, written by Lori Gottlieb. The setting of this book is Beverly Hills, in the year of 1978.
The main character, Lori is an intelligent eleven year old girl. She is surrounded by people who live a lifestyle on being rich, doing diets and trying to be thin and surrounded by messages of the
“perfect body” for women. Every female she comes across, from peer to adult, is on a diet, counts calories, avoids desserts and gossips about other women. In the beginning, she does not care any of that and lives to enjoy her childhood. However, when her mother starts telling her to be more lady-like, her mind …show more content…
changes. She develops anorexia later on by starving herself, thinking that she should look like the women on magazines. Her illness becomes more severe and she ends up in the hospital. To make matters worse, at the hospital, she gets suicidal thoughts. On the day Lori leaves the hospital, she realizes how the women talking about a perfect body can get even the smartest person to believe they need to be skinny, just like her.
Timeline
Part 1- Winter 1987: Lori figures herself to be different than most kids her age. She’s very intelligent but she’s dealing with problems from home.
Part 2- Spring 1987: She starts to go on diets and starts to lose weight.
Her parents become worried and send her to doctors. The thought of becoming anorexic is put in many young aged people because of the idea to be skinny. Anorexia is a physical and a mental condition. It’s when one thinks they need to be skinny and hurt themselves physically.
Part 3- Summer 1987: Lori gets hospitalized and becomes much more depressed. She looks in the mirror and sees herself as a stick figure. She is sent to the hospital because she refused to eat and often had health problems. At the hospital, the doctors thought her condition would get better, but it only became worse. She got depressed and became suicidal.
Part 4: At the end of the book, Lori is taken out of the hospital. She looks in the mirror and sees an ugly, stick figure looking back at her. This is a major turning point because she realizes that being totally different is alright and she doesn’t have to be stick thin in order to gain her beauty. In the end, she overcomes anorexia nervosa and is an anorexia survivor.
Quotations: -“If you have high metabolism, you can eat a lot and will not gain as much weight as a person with slow metabolism.” (Gottlieb 93)
-”An eleven year old girl needs 2000 calories per day to grow at a healthy rate.” (Gottlieb …show more content…
107)
Characters
The significant characters which are in this book are Lori, Lori’s father, Lori’s mother, Dr. Katz, Dr.Gold, Lana & Tracy, Fred Smuckler, Bonnie and Chrissy.
Lori’s father is always in his office checking stock market and smoking his pipe. He always deals with Lori when her mother is tired of her.
Lori’s mother is very over emotional and not very smart. She is not supportive to Lori and only cares about Lori’s image to the outer world.
Dr.Katz is the doctor Lori is taken to by her mother. He’s from Texas and a very joyful person. He tries to help out Lori and gives advice so she can be at normal weight again but Lori ignores his advice.
Dr.Katz recommends that Lori visits Dr. Gold, who is a psychiatrist. Dr. Gold listens to what Lori has to say and asks her questions about her life.
Lana & Tracey started off as Lori’s friends. Eventually, they become jealous of Lori when she became thinner. They become even more jealous when she won all the Physical Fitness awards.
Fred Smuckler was a “nerd” who went to Lori’s school. He was the only one who was very supportive to Lori at their school.
Bonnie is Lori’s nutritionist. She tells Lori what a girl her age should weigh and also gives her a food journal where Lori is supposed to write down what she eats.
Chrissy is Lori’s pet parakeet and her best friend. Chrissy suffered while Lori was dieting because Lori put her on a diet too.
Relevant Vocabulary
Unique- She is very smart and doesn’t act like girls her age
Anorexia nervous- the doctor tells Lori that she has a disease which means that she gets nervous and is afraid to gain weight
Habits- Lori develops strange habits. She won’t step on cracks on sidewalks and she counts all of her calories, all the time.
Individuality: Lori isn’t afraid of being herself and doesn’t care if she’s different
Eating Disorder- The doctor tells her that she has an eating disorder. She doesn’t eat what she is supposed to.
Rebellion- Lori doesn’t follow what the doctors orders and becomes rebellious
Lonely- Doesn’t have many and her parents aren’t there for her most of the time
Depression: Lori becomes depressed as she isn’t making her family proud
Suicidal: Lori tries to release her pain by stabbing herself with scissors in an attempt to kill herself
Body Image- Has a twisted and a distorted view on her self image. She thinks she’s fat but she’s underweight.
Outcomes & Reactions: became depressed, diagnosed with anorexia, self denial, dramatic
At the end of the book, Lori is taken out of the hospital. She looks in the mirror and sees an ugly, stick figure looking back at her. This is a turning point because she realizes that being different is okay and she doesn’t have to be stick thin in order to gain beauty. In the end, she overcomes anorexia nervosa and is an anorexia survivor.
This book has high connections to the world.
Gottlieb is dead-on about society's irrational attitudes toward women's bodies; in fact, her sincere attempt to make sense of those misguided, illogical attitudes leads to the logic of this condition. She struggles to make sense of the following social truths, which she has learned from her mother :"If you're a woman, you're supposed to try to look like a girl with a 'girlish figure.' But if you're a girl, you're supposed to act like a woman by not being 'spirited.' This book gives a good message against the tag of “being physically perfect” put on women. It also shows how affected someone can get easily by media, their surroundings and peers, just the way Lori
did.
In my opinion, I would recommend this book to others because of the positive message it spreads. I did not enjoy the book in the beginning, but it got me very interested as new events and conflicts started so I did enjoy reading it.
The book which I will be talking about, is an autobiography, Stick Figure, written by Lori Gottlieb. The setting of this book is Beverly Hills, in the year of 1978.
The main character, Lori is an intelligent eleven year old girl. She is surrounded by people who live a lifestyle on being rich, doing diets and trying to be thin and surrounded by messages of the
“perfect body” for women. Every female she comes across, from peer to adult, is on a diet, counts calories, avoids desserts and gossips about other women. In the beginning, she does not care any of that and lives to enjoy her childhood. However, when her mother starts telling her to be more lady-like, her mind …show more content…
changes. She develops anorexia later on by starving herself, thinking that she should look like the women on magazines. Her illness becomes more severe and she ends up in the hospital. To make matters worse, at the hospital, she gets suicidal thoughts. On the day Lori leaves the hospital, she realizes how the women talking about a perfect body can get even the smartest person to believe they need to be skinny, just like her.
Timeline
Part 1- Winter 1987: Lori figures herself to be different than most kids her age. She’s very intelligent but she’s dealing with problems from home.
Part 2- Spring 1987: She starts to go on diets and starts to lose weight.
Her parents become worried and send her to doctors. The thought of becoming anorexic is put in many young aged people because of the idea to be skinny. Anorexia is a physical and a mental condition. It’s when one thinks they need to be skinny and hurt themselves physically.
Part 3- Summer 1987: Lori gets hospitalized and becomes much more depressed. She looks in the mirror and sees herself as a stick figure. She is sent to the hospital because she refused to eat and often had health problems. At the hospital, the doctors thought her condition would get better, but it only became worse. She got depressed and became suicidal.
Part 4: At the end of the book, Lori is taken out of the hospital. She looks in the mirror and sees an ugly, stick figure looking back at her. This is a major turning point because she realizes that being totally different is alright and she doesn’t have to be stick thin in order to gain her beauty. In the end, she overcomes anorexia nervosa and is an anorexia survivor.
Quotations: -“If you have high metabolism, you can eat a lot and will not gain as much weight as a person with slow metabolism.” (Gottlieb 93)
-”An eleven year old girl needs 2000 calories per day to grow at a healthy rate.” (Gottlieb …show more content…
107)
Characters
The significant characters which are in this book are Lori, Lori’s father, Lori’s mother, Dr. Katz, Dr.Gold, Lana & Tracy, Fred Smuckler, Bonnie and Chrissy.
Lori’s father is always in his office checking stock market and smoking his pipe. He always deals with Lori when her mother is tired of her.
Lori’s mother is very over emotional and not very smart. She is not supportive to Lori and only cares about Lori’s image to the outer world.
Dr.Katz is the doctor Lori is taken to by her mother. He’s from Texas and a very joyful person. He tries to help out Lori and gives advice so she can be at normal weight again but Lori ignores his advice.
Dr.Katz recommends that Lori visits Dr. Gold, who is a psychiatrist. Dr. Gold listens to what Lori has to say and asks her questions about her life.
Lana & Tracey started off as Lori’s friends. Eventually, they become jealous of Lori when she became thinner. They become even more jealous when she won all the Physical Fitness awards.
Fred Smuckler was a “nerd” who went to Lori’s school. He was the only one who was very supportive to Lori at their school.
Bonnie is Lori’s nutritionist. She tells Lori what a girl her age should weigh and also gives her a food journal where Lori is supposed to write down what she eats.
Chrissy is Lori’s pet parakeet and her best friend. Chrissy suffered while Lori was dieting because Lori put her on a diet too.
Relevant Vocabulary
Unique- She is very smart and doesn’t act like girls her age
Anorexia nervous- the doctor tells Lori that she has a disease which means that she gets nervous and is afraid to gain weight
Habits- Lori develops strange habits. She won’t step on cracks on sidewalks and she counts all of her calories, all the time.
Individuality: Lori isn’t afraid of being herself and doesn’t care if she’s different
Eating Disorder- The doctor tells her that she has an eating disorder. She doesn’t eat what she is supposed to.
Rebellion- Lori doesn’t follow what the doctors orders and becomes rebellious
Lonely- Doesn’t have many and her parents aren’t there for her most of the time
Depression: Lori becomes depressed as she isn’t making her family proud
Suicidal: Lori tries to release her pain by stabbing herself with scissors in an attempt to kill herself
Body Image- Has a twisted and a distorted view on her self image. She thinks she’s fat but she’s underweight.
Outcomes & Reactions: became depressed, diagnosed with anorexia, self denial, dramatic
At the end of the book, Lori is taken out of the hospital. She looks in the mirror and sees an ugly, stick figure looking back at her. This is a turning point because she realizes that being different is okay and she doesn’t have to be stick thin in order to gain beauty. In the end, she overcomes anorexia nervosa and is an anorexia survivor.
This book has high connections to the world.
Gottlieb is dead-on about society's irrational attitudes toward women's bodies; in fact, her sincere attempt to make sense of those misguided, illogical attitudes leads to the logic of this condition. She struggles to make sense of the following social truths, which she has learned from her mother :"If you're a woman, you're supposed to try to look like a girl with a 'girlish figure.' But if you're a girl, you're supposed to act like a woman by not being 'spirited.' This book gives a good message against the tag of “being physically perfect” put on women. It also shows how affected someone can get easily by media, their surroundings and peers, just the way Lori
did.
In my opinion, I would recommend this book to others because of the positive message it spreads. I did not enjoy the book in the beginning, but it got me very interested as new events and conflicts started so I did enjoy reading it.