A Novel | Arsenal Pulp Press
Days short of her birthday, Lila resolves to end her life. The horror of soon turning eighteen has broken her heart.Faerie is the story of a girl who refuses to grow up. She likens herself to a half-human fairy creature who does not belong in the earthly world. In reality, the girl is a psychiatric patient at St. Mary’s hospital where she's being treated for a disorder more lethal than most. Her sickness is driven the irrational need to undo nature and thwart time.Faerie tells the story of how she ended up there, where she has been admitted for anorexia. We backtrack to her childhood growing up as a fat brown kid to Indian immigrant parents. With mordant wit and heartbreaking lyricism, Faerie is a love letter to the splendid beauty of childhood.
"Marjara, writing in Lila's affecting voice, delicately captures the deep insecurities of teenhood, the pressure of trying to fit into one ideal of beauty, and the complexity of anorexia with lovely, flowing prose, underscoring the devastating effects that mental illness can have an an entire family."
-Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW)
"Faerie is intensely intimate, containing details that will ring resoundingly true for anyone who has ever suffered with an eating disorder. The strange combination of self-hatred that fuels extreme weight loss and pride that comes from the sensation of feeling nothing but hard bone under the skin is achingly true-to-life, but not glorified." - Quill & Quire