Module 7: Wintergirls

Anderson, L. (2009). Wintergirls. New York: Viking.

Summary
Lia confronts her anorexia and the guilt over her estranged best friend Cassie's death. Readers follow Lia's thoughts as she fights against her constant urges to deny herself food even as she knows this battle will kill her as it did Cassie. Lia also battles her parents for control of her life. Yet through Lia's pain, we can see her humanity in her steadfast love for her little sister and her ultimate decision to give life a chance.

My Impressions
This was a beautifully written book with lyrical prose and an interesting style of crossing out thoughts that Lia did not want to acknowledge. Much of the story is narrated through Lia's internal dialogue as she fights against her own urges. Readers are rooting for Lia until the very end. I've read many books about eating disorders and this is now one of my favorites. The writing flows and is believable and the complexity of Lia's feelings in regards to her friend's death is very realistic. Great portrayal of the struggle that girls with eating disorders endure within their own minds. The story also talks a bit about the urge to cut oneself in order to get rid of pain which oftentimes goes hand-in-hand with body image disorders.

Professional Reviews
*Starred Review* Problem-novel fodder becomes a devastating portrait of the extremes of self-deception in this brutal and poetic deconstruction of how one girl stealthily vanishes into the depths of anorexia. Lia has been down this road before: her competitive relationship with her best friend, Cassie, once landed them both in the hospital, but now not even Cassie's death can eradicate Lia's disgust of the fat cows who scrutinize her body all day long. Her father (no, Professor Overbrook ) and her mother (no, Dr. Marrigan ) are frighteningly easy to dupe tinkering and sabotage inflate her scale readings as her weight secretly plunges: 101.30, 97.00, 89.00. Anderson illuminates a dark but utterly realistic world where every piece of food is just a caloric number, inner voices scream NO! with each swallow, and self-worth is too easily gauged: I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through. Struck-through sentences, incessant repetition, and even blank pages make Lia's inner turmoil tactile, and gruesome details of her decomposition will test sensitive readers. But this is necessary reading for anyone caught in a feedback loop of weight loss as well as any parent unfamiliar with the scripts teens recite so easily to escape from such deadly situations. --Booklist; Kraus, Daniel, 2008. (Retrieved from http://catalog.lapl.org/carlweb/)

Gr 8 Up-The intensity of emotion and vivid language here are more reminiscent of Anderson's Speak (Farrar, 1999) than any of her other works. Lia and Cassie had been best friends since elementary school, and each developed her own style of eating disorder that leads to disaster. Now 18, they are no longer friends. Despite their estrangement, Cassie calls Lia 33 times on the night of her death, and Lia never answers. As events play out, Lia's guilt, her need to be thin, and her fight for acceptance unravel in an almost poetic stream of consciousness in this startlingly crisp and pitch-perfect first-person narrative. The text is rich with words still legible but crossed out, the judicious use of italics, and tiny font-size refrains reflecting her distorted internal logic. All of the usual answers of specialized treatment centers, therapy, and monitoring of weight and food fail to prevail while Lia's cleverness holds sway. What happens to her in the end is much less the point than traveling with her on her agonizing journey of inexplicable pain and her attempt to make some sense of her life. --School Library Journal; Carol A. Edwards, Denver Public Library, 2009. (Retrieved from http://catalog.lapl.org/carlweb/)

Acute anorexia, self-mutilation, dysfunctional families and the death of a childhood friend-returning to psychological minefields akin to those explored in Speak, Anderson delivers a harrowing story overlaid with a trace of mysticism. The book begins as Lia learns that her estranged best friend, Cassie, has been found dead in a motel room; Lia tells no one that, after six months of silence, Cassie called her 33 times just two days earlier, and that Lia didn't pick up even once. With Lia as narrator, Anderson shows readers how anorexia comes to dominate the lives of those who suffer from it (here, both Lia and Cassie), even to the point of fueling intense competition between sufferers. The author sets up Lia's history convincingly and with enviable economy-her driven mother is "Mom Dr. Marrigan," while her stepmother's values are summed up with a prEcis of her stepsister's agenda: "Third grade is not too young for enrichment, you know." This sturdy foundation supports riskier elements: subtle references to the myth of Persephone and a crucial plot line involving Cassie's ghost and its appearances to Lia. As difficult as reading this novel can be, it is more difficult to put down. Ages 12-up. --Publishers Weekly, March 2009. (Retrieved from http://catalog.lapl.org/carlweb/)

Suggested Use in Library
This is definitely a heavy topic but very relevant in a time where girls, influenced by MTV and entertainment television, feel more judged by their looks than ever before. Teenage girls will relate to this story and fans of Hopkins' books will most likely enjoy this book as well. This would be a great book to recommend to teenage girls with the warning that the subject matter is quite intense and the underlying theme of the book is the conviction that this sort of self-destructive behavior will ultimately lead to the destruction of one's life.

--------
SLIS 5420/Module 7, Book 2
Realistic Fiction for Young Adults
October 4-10, 2010