Laurie Halse Anderson
ISBN 978-0-670-01110-0
278 pages
Viking, 2009
Genre: Issue Novel
Reader's Annotation
Cassie and Lia were inseparable, though their eating disorders ended their friendship. After Cassie's death, Lia is haunted by visions of her friend and relapses into anorexia.
Plot Summary:
Lia and Cassie's friendship was both incredibly close and dysfunctional; they supported each other through the emotional pain caused by their family life, but they also encouraged each other in the eating disorders each used to cope with the pain. After Lia returns from treatment, Cassie ends their friendship, citing Lia as a bad influence. When Cassie dies, however, Lia spirals back into anorexia. On the night of her death, Cassie called Lia 33 times, but Lia didn't pick up the phone. Cassie's death haunts Lia both literally and figuratively; Cassie visits her at night and begs her to join her.
Lia hides her declining weight from her family and refuses to open up to the therapist her parents insist she sees. Her friends seem to have faded away, and her parents are largely absorbed with their work, leaving Lia with little to distract her from her increasing obsession with food, calories and exercise. She's largely a "wintergirl," starving, cold, frigid; the only real emotional contact she has is with her younger stepsister and a strange and fragile friendship with Elijah, who works at the motel where Cassie was found dead. Lia must literally choose between life and death, between joining Cassie or reentering the real world and addressing all the pain she's frozen away.
Critical Evaluation:
Anderson creates a very moving and intimate portrait of a teen girl struggling with so much emotional pain that she can only take it out on herself. The entire story is told by Lia, and the reader is given complete access to her inner thoughts and twisted logic. We see how Lia fools the adults around her into thinking she's OK, while all the time her weight dips lower and lower. Her thoughts are consumed by food and calories, as well as the pain she feels over Cassie's rejection and death and her guilt at ignoring what were Cassie's last pleas for help. Lia's voice is original, authentic, precise.
While the whole story is seen through Lia's skewed perspective, we do get a sense of her family life and why she has resorted to cutting and anorexia to express her internal pain. Her parents do care deeply for Lia, but are so preoccupied professionally that they are quick to accept Lia's excuses and not delve too deeply in the matter. Much of the day-to-day management of Lia's supposed recovery is handled by her stepmother, who's perhaps the only adult not entirely fooled by Lia, but doesn't feel she quite has the emotional authority to insist her husband and his ex-wife throw Lia back into treatment.
Anderson explains how anorexics use "pro-ana" websites and discussion boards to find the emotional support they need to continue starving themselves, much as Cassie and Lia supported each other in their diseases. And she explores how, despite the adults around her who are doing all the textbook right things, it's not until Lia truly wants to recover that she can.
About the author:
Anderson has written a number of books for children and young adults. Many of her young adult novels have been incredibly well-received critically, winning multiple awards. She often deals with themes of depression and death in her novels. Her works are equally contemporary and historical.
Curriculum Ties:
Anorexia, bulimia, cutting
Booktalking Ideas:
1. Talk about Cassie and Lia's supportive yet destructive friendship
2. Talk about Lia's pain and her ways of coping with it
Reading/Interest Level:
9th grade and up
Challenge Issues:
This book has many potential challenge issues: anorexia, bulimia, cutting, drug use, and suicide. This book may be challenged because of its subject matter. Librarians should be aware of their selection policy and be able to explain and defend it to challengers. They could point out the excellent reviews this book has already received and point to the many awards Anderson has received for her young adult as justification for its inclusion.
Selection Criteria:
Many of our readings in the class have held up Anderson's works as excellent young adult novels. I specifically read a review of Wintergirls in the Association for Children's Literature of Northern California's monthly newsletter that gave it a grade of "Outstanding," so I sought it out specifically.
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