Fifteen-year-old Mike desperately attempts to take control as his parents separate and his life falls apart.

A collection of stories about the complicated and powerful ties between mothers and daughters includes such tales as a mother and child who turn cooking ingredients into symbolic weapons and a woman who questions her place in the face of teen antics.

"Magnolia "Maggie" Hagen is determined to be in the spotlight ... if she can just get over her stage fright. This summer, though, she has big plans to finally attend Camp Rising Star, the famous performing arts camp she's been dying to go to for three whole summers. But on the last day of school, her parents break the news: Maggie isn't going to Camp Rising Star. She's being shipped off to fat camp, and not just any fat camp. She's going to Camp Sylvania,...

"Sought-after social media influencer Sara Vance, in recovery from an eating disorder, is coming into her own, with a potential career expansion on the horizon. Despite the good news, her successful siblings (and their perfect spouses) have a way of making her feel like the odd one out. So, when her unreliable boyfriend is a no-show for a Florida family vacation, Sara recruits Luis Navarro - a firefighter paramedic and dive captain willing to play...

When life seems to conspire against you, how do you find the courage to dive into Healing Waters? When Lucia Coffey looks at her reflection, she sees fat and failure. When she looks at her sister Sonia, she sees svelte and success. When she looks at God, she sees that divine love can't possibly be doled out equally. All her life, Lucia has coped by throwing herself into taking care of those who seem more worthy of God's goods, and feeding the dreams...

"Losing her mother to a hit-and-run at age 15 threw Beatrice "Beans" Bennett's life into turmoil. Bereft, she developed a life-threatening eating disorder, and went through a challenging recovery process which paved the way for her work as a clinical psychologist decades later. When a new patient arrives at her office and insists that Beans's mother is still alive-and in danger-Beans is forced to revisit her past in order to uncover the truth. She...

Seventeen-year-old Lisabeth has anorexia, and even turning into Famine--one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse--cannot keep her from feeling fat and worthless.

Ten years after one terrible night in Paxos, Greece, Julie, the classic "yummy mummy" of high society, is a stifled woman trapped in a gilded cage, stricken with anxiety and perfectionism until she meets a therapist who gives her hope for a different future. he vacation house is a luxurious getaway for a wealthy English family, windows open to sun and the sea, a sparkling swimming pool, and a verdant garden. One hot summer night, while the parents...

Natalie is propelled through life by pica, a disorder that has her eating a wide variety of inedibles from pencil shavings to foam peanuts to plastic doll parts. A lowly staff worker for the local news, she follows the inane demands of the stations senile weatherman and comes home to an empty apartment, unless of course her father uses the spare key. But Natalie's past stalks her at every turn. With her mother recently killed in a tragic house fire,...