Rating: 
Summary: not very good
Review: Don't be fooled by the title of this book. This book isn't really about eating disorders. It isn't about really about two sisters either or about a mother or a daughter or a family. It touches on many points of these things but it never finishes them completely. The situations that happen to Franny feel forced and are just there for no point at all. We have a girl who just stands around trying to seem to have alot of spunk and spirit but who is selfish and absorbed in herself, barely do we ever get any insights about Fran's more charming and more interesting sister, Shelly (the only charactor in the book I could relate to) and the parents are just shadows of themselves, not really having personalties or reasons for doing anything. Her friend is the typical slut charactor from every book and the author tries hard to convince us that Franny can charm all the guys and her comebacks at them are cute and make her interesting to them. More sickening though is the fact that Frannie is visiting her sister in a eating disorder hospital and instead of caring about Shelly, she is flirting with some pathetic doctor. How many sisters would truly be that way? It's disgusting! By the end of the book, the author finishes things up all very neatly and everything is wonderful and Frannie is supposed to be our super hero because she made it threw "tough times". *rolls eyes*
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant
Review: This book quickly earned it's place among my favorites. It's written in a way that the reader can easily relate to, even if the situations are foreign concepts. The author touches on things that a lot of authors wouldn't, and the result is amazing. This book is straightforward and unapologetic, and leaves you with something to think about when you finish reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Way better than Good Girls Gone Bad
Review: Funny, bitter, sad and believable, Frannie is a great character to remember and enjoy throroughly. Unlike the utterly disappointing Good Girls Gone Bad - what a waste of time and money. The two books do not even look written by the same author.
Rating: 
Summary: life's a...
Review: this book was one of the best books i've ever read. it left such an impact on me and i felt exactly what the characters were feeling. it really shows how life can be such a... it talks about a family's struggle to keep it together...as a family and as individuals. i would recommend it to everyone! the words flow and it's pretty funny too! trust!
Rating:
Summary: "Hunger Point" hits home..
Review: I have read both "Hunger Point" and "Good Girls Gone Bad." Ater both, I cannot wait to see what Jillian Medoff has planned next.Medoff manages to portray the typical dysfunctional family. Dad is obsesssed with his novelty sales job, and tries and stay out of his overbearing wife's way. Mom would rather be at work, that at home. When she is at home, her main job is watching her daughter's figure. Shelly is the perfect sister. Smart, about to go on to law school, or will the strain of such a perfect life crack her? Finally, Frannie is the thread that holds the family together. The perpetual screw-up; yet the only one who knows what each family member needs. "Hunger Point" really hits home to me, because I've struggled with my weight all my life. Even now, I still obsess over food so that I don't go back to the heavy girl I was. I'm also unemployed right now, so I heavily sympathize with Frannie.
Rating:
Summary: (4.5) Just "taking the edge off...."
Review: In her eerily accurate portrayal of a family in crisis, Medoff fearlessly tackles her subject head on. Couched in the abrasive humor of a dysfunctional family run amok, Frannie Hunter is on the inside looking out. At 26, Frannie moves home, her own financial and emotional resources in a state of collapse. Frannie retreats to the bedroom of her childhood, at first burrowing into the comfort of sleep. Finding a job becomes less important than navigating the treacherous waters of family ties. A supposedly "well-meaning" and ineffective mother hectors both daughters all their lives, chanting her mantra, "don't get fat". The distant father does the family food shopping and meal preparation, but otherwise refuses to engage in the family dynamic. With a critical eye, Frannie watches her parents brittle dance, their lack of connections ever more obvious. For all her quirky comments, Frannie is ineffective at best and cannot tempt younger sister, Shelly, back from her free fall into anorexia nervosa. When Shelly becomes dangerously thin and is hospitalized, Frannie feels invisible and lost. In contrast to Shelly's literal starvation, Frannie compulsively consumes everything in the refrigerator, indiscriminate, a vain attempt to assuage her gnawing fear of what may happen. But there is no panacea for Frannie's pain, and neither sex, sleep nor food, offer the relief she so desperately desires. The family concentrates on Shelly's critical condition, while Frannie marks the poignant distinctions of life in her parent's house as "ominous and depressing, weighted with the feeling of someone about to burst into tears". Adept at denial, the remaining family members struggle to maintain the status quo in the face of inevitability, unsure of the future and unable to comfort each other. Medoff writes with unassailable conviction, flaying the myths that surround food and self-image, the young women and their mother victims of a society that disproportionately values packaging over content. Her incisive wit cuts through situations riddled with pain, and Medoff's account of the Hunter family is pitch-perfect. There are certainly pitfalls in a novel that deals with such agonizing issues, one of which is the fine line between writing about a disease and authoring a do-it-yourself manual for anorexics. Medoff successfully refuses to pander to anorexia in this way. This story is cautionary, full of details about the seductive nature of addiction and the ease with which families evolve into a paradigm that allows denial to camouflage truth. Brutally honest, tempered with the wry humor of self-examination, Frannie is a character reference for hope and recovery. Luan Gaines/ 2003.
Rating:
Summary: Who Said Weight is Supposed to Determine How You Feel
Review: I watched the movie based on the book on Lifetime Television and I thought it was well-directed. The mother played by Barbara Hershey, puts her older daughter, Frannie on a diet because she was too fat and she didn't want for her child to be fat and think that food was a way to make her feel better. But their dieting also made the younger sister want to go on a diet which led to anorexia nervosa and her untimely death. What the mother failed to understand was that her weight loss wasn't any guarantee that she would be happier with herself or that her daugther would be happy. Instead, it created more misery and unhappiness for the whole family. The father rarely had a say in the household. Basically, the viewer knew what type of a household it was.
Lifetime made it worth watching. I've been through diets losing and gaining weight and I can guarantee you that changing your weight doesn't always make you feel better about yourself. Happiness comes from within.
Rating:
Summary: Not Done Yet, But It STILL Gets Five Stars!
Review: I haven't even finished this book yet, and I still give it 5 stars! Jillian Medoff's Frannie is going through it in this book, and I can totally relate to so many things that she's going through. I love books with real characters, real stories, and real emotions, and that's exactly what this book is all about.
Rating:
Summary: don't mistake it for chick-lit -- it's WAY too good
Review: I cried through a lot of this book. Frannie is 26 and has moved back to her folks' home with no job prospects other than waitressing at a place called Rascal's, wearing an apron with a duck on it. Her younger sister Shelly, on the other hand, is everything their parents ever wanted them both to be: a Cornell graduate, applying to Harvard Law, and thin ... to the point of anorexia and hospitalization. The story is Frannie's, but you see the development and destruction of her family as well. The way she relates to her lifelong best friend Abby, various guys she meets and dates, her grandfather Max, and Shelly's hospital inmates tell a lot about her as time progresses. The story covers about a year in Frannie's life, and the perspective it offers on some heart-rending family situations is phenomenal, if for no other reason than it forces you to think of what you would do in Frannie's shoes.
Rating:
Summary: Witty, Wise and Wonderful
Review: I cannot believe this one is out of print already. Track down a used copy of Hunger Point, it will be worth your effort. Hunger Point is a very funny, engaging story, with many more layers than the usual single girl in search of life, love and career. Frannie Hunter the protagonist has always been overshadowed by her brilliant younger sister Shelly. Frannie had just moved back home and is working as a waitress in a local restaurant and is single, but Shelly has just been hospitalized for anorexia. As their family tries to cope with Shelly's crisis, Frannie tries to deal with her own issues, on top of what's happening to Shelly. Hunger Point can be funny and sad at the same time. It is a wonderful exploration of family relationships and of eating disorders. Frannie is a warm, personable character you will find yourself rooting for. Find yourself a copy and enjoy.
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