• 14-year-old Amardeep struggles with being a mixed-race girl in a town where her identity is not well represented. Both of her parents are first generation immigrants, her mother from Communist Poland and father from Pakistan. She feels isolated and unable to tell people about her family struggles in a predominately white neighborhood.
• An estimated 1.4 million youths suffer from an eating disorder in Canada, with only 25% receiving appropriate treatment (CIHR). Eating disorders often begin in adolescence and affect women ten times more than men. (Statistics Canada). This novel, targeted towards adolescence and young adults, showcases a common but often unspoken experience.
• Catch, Drive, Release, Recover plunges into the therapeutic process, following Amardeep as she learns cognitive and somatic strategies to cope with her eating disorder. While she grows immensely throughout the novel, it also highlights how eating disorders are not cured overnight.
• This is Olivia Pillai Quinney’s debut novel, which is based off her own experience as a way to explore an artistic outlet as her own healing journey. She is a volunteer at the National Initiative for Eating Disorders and Youth Center.