Alone in her tiny hotel room Lucy wonders what she should do? Is she really ill or just homesick? The tour leader thinks she's homesick. Why else would she have left her behind? But Lucy is not so sure. Reluctantly she decides to fly to an English speaking country. And to her embarrassment is taken off the plane in a wheelchair. Seriously unwell, Lucy is admitted to hospital. Her life saved. However remaining unwell, remaining terrified by her ordeal she soon finds herself a 'patient' and unwittingly drawn into a dynamic and powerful struggle over the ownership of her life's story. Advised to undergo a range of treatments - some harsh, some ineffective, others insightful and intelligent - Lucy slowly realizes that being a 'patient' will solve little, that it is up to her to write herself out of the terror.

The nightmare. So why won't she eat? Bravely, Lucy allows the reader to 'see' her, to understand why eating has become impossible. Life impossible. Revealing herself from different time frames, different perspectives, she enables us to experience what it is like to suffocate in the immediacy of a eating disorder. To look back at a troubled time with empathy and forward to a world of opportunities, older and wiser. Lucy allows us to make sense of what it means to be ill. Likewise we also understand that if Lucy's recovery is to be secure, robust and solid, her distress must be understood. Her life lived in her own words.

When it was first published Cardboard was recognized as a compelling portrait of anorexia nervosa and one of the first books to understand the role of narrative in the recovery process. Similarly today when much of the focus on eating disorders concerns decoding the genetics and biology of the condition, this novel continues to provide an understanding of the individual's affective experience and the socio-cultural context in which it occurs. "One of the best novels ever to be published in Australia." Amanda Lohrey.