Artichoke Heart Review

Artichoke Heart by Suzanne Supplee was a magnificent novel about a young girl fighting the constant mocking of her own reflection. She is a girl who struggles with her weight and who seeks comfort in food. She faces anything from being called a fat artichoke, from feeling as though she needs to purge in order to lose weight. Even though the young girl, whose name is Rosemary (or Rosie for short), does not become bulimic she still has to deal with her constant urges to over eat. She also faces other challenges besides her looks though. She has a huge crush on this guy named Kyle Cox who she thinks is just dreamy. He is a star athlete, polite, and doesn’t mock people. Kyle is even really nice to Rosie which makes her like him even more. There’s only one problem though, Rosie feels as though because of her weight, that she won’t even have a chance with Kyle. But by the end of the novel they are together. Another challenge she faces is the fact that her mom has cancer. Even though the kind she has isn’t terminal, it still burdens her physically and causes her to have many difficult side effects such as a horrible cough and fatigue. Rosie also has to face the fact that she and her mom don’t have a very close relationship. Her mother would rather seek advice and comfort in her superficial aunt than she would her own daughter. Rosie’s aunt is just the kind of character in the novel that the reader can’t help but resent. She always trying to push Rosie to lose weight, but by all the wrong angles, instead of being supportive and sensitive to Rosie’s feelings, she’s blunt and just plain rude. Such as when they go to an unsuccessful weight seminar her aunt just bluntly says, “Why can’t you just lose weight, Rosie? I mean, is it so hard just to stop doing this?” (Supplee 54). By the end of the novel, though, Rosie manages to work through the majority of the obstacles that she had to face and even ends up with her dream guy.
I thought this was a fantastic novel. I felt that it just kept me turning the pages. I thought that it was something different from what I’m used to reading. The reason why is because instead of each problem just being solved really easily, Rosie actually has to fight and work hard to make the accomplishments that she does achieve, which I admire. I also enjoyed reading this novel because it had a great ending. I don’t normally like it when fictions end badly. Artichoke Heart is probably one of my favorite novels now and I look forward to reading more from Suzanne Supplee.
I liked reading this novel also because it went well with my research topic on how food correlates with emotions. I think that by Rosie seeking comfort and fulfillment in her appetite it is a way to cope with the many problems in her life. I think that Rosie feels more connection with a Hershey’s chocolate bar than she does her own mother in the beginning of the book. But as Rosie learns how to cope she ends up learning how to aim her hunger towards something else. An example of this would be how she would crave daydreams about Kyle Cox instead of craving food. I thought that this was a very appropriate novel for the topic and I think that it fit in pretty well. This novel also allowed me to better understand the connection food has with its emotional bond with people.

Supplee, Suzanne. Artichoke Heart. New York: Dutton Books, 2008. 1-276. Print.