dramastef's Full Review: Laurie Halse Anderson - Wintergirls
It's easier to skip the sleeping pill, wait until Dad and Jennifer are both snoring, and spend three or four hours on the stair-stepper... I am 98.00. I am 97.00. I sharpen Nanna Marrigan's pretty knife and hide it under my mattress, just in case. I am 96.50.
Lia and her best friend Cassie were the skinniest girls in school. The boys referred to them as "Dead girls walking" and the girls just cast envious glances their way. After Cassie's parents sent her away to help deal with her bulimia, Cassie tells Lia that she's a bad influence and they can't be friends anymore. Lia has a harder time staying strong and fighting the constant temptation to eat, eat, eat, but cutting and constant self degradation seem to do the job.
Author Laurie Halse Anderson does a wonderful job of effectively conveying the mental illness that manifests as an eating disorder through Lia's first person narrative in her YA novel Wintergirls. At one point, two pages are taken up with three words written over and over. Must. Not. Eat. Often, in order to retain her 'strength' and not eat, Lia will count to 33. Each number is written as she is thinking it. Later, we find out that the number 33 is important because it is the number of times Cassie tried to call her, reaching out for help on the night she died in a filthy hotel room after binging and purging and drinking for days. Her esophagus finally ruptured from the years of abuse she'd given it.
Another successful writing tactic used here is the simple strikethrough. Often, Lia will be relating one thing or another and what she really wants to think/say will be crossed out and what her anorexic, sick self needs to say will be what remains untouched. When a boy asks her if she wants a slice of pizza, she writes, the parenthetical actually being the strikethrough text, (One bite, please, and then another and another, crust and cheese sausage sauce another and another) empty is strong and invincible. "I already ate."
As hard as Wintergirls was to read at times, it's an important subject that should definitely be discussed with your own teenage daughter. I recently donated our scales to Salvation Army after I noticed my ten-year-old weighing herself too many times. I tell her often that it's never about the number, but about eating healthy and staying active. Though Wintergirls is just a bit over her reading level in terms of the intensity of the subject, I did show her the book and tell her the story so we could talk about what can happen when people obsess about their weight.
Anderson writes about relevant issues with a stark, brutal honesty that is downright scary. Besides the obsessive behavior and weight loss, Lia sees her divorced parents and step mother as enemies, twisting their concern into whatever she needs it to be to stay strong. For the purposes of this story, it is only after her innocent younger step sister Emma sees her bloody and bony as she passes out, that Lia begins a very tentative step toward recovery.
Wintergirls ends on a shaky positive note, with no promises of recovery, but rather a tiny pinpoint prick of light at the end of the proverbial tunnel that is miles long. Too many true life stories of this nature don't even have that. Much like Go Ask Alice has its place in the anti-drug fight, Wintergirls should be read by you and your teenage daughters.
Six years after Cassie and Lia resolved to become the skinniest girls in their school, Cassie dies. Unable to bear the sadness and guilt following Cas...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.