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A review by theresidentbookworm
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
5.0
I read Wintergirls when it first came out. I remember seeing it at B&N and having my curiosity piqued. I had never heard of Laurie Halse Anderson. I had never read Speak. I knew nearly nothing about eating disorders or the girls that suffered from them. Wintergirls changed everything.
When I say everything, I really do mean everything. Before Wintergirls, I was a fan of chick-lit, of soppy romance stories and cute endings. I had never experienced anything like Wintergirls, and I couldn't go back. Wintergirls lead me to Ellen Hopkins and Sara Zarr. It lead me to the serious young adult fiction, the books filled with heartbreaking problems and characters I connected with. It changed my reading. It also changed my interests. I became, for a lack of a better word, fascinated with eating disorders and the cause of them. I wanted to know what drove these girls and what could help them. This road lead me to many good books and a memoir called Brave Girl Eating (wonderful book; I'd definitely recommend it). Then I did my 8th grade research paper on treatments for eating disorders. Now it is something that always catches my attention (and has caused me to watch my favorite cousin, who has very strange eating habits, a little more closely).
Lia wasn't hard for me to like. She had isolated herself away from people, away from both her parents, from her classmates, because of her obsession with what she eats. She counts the calories of every single thing she eats, contemplates the best way to trick her stepmother into thinking she was gaining weight/eating. Lia is scared and lonely and a little bit more than lost when her best friend Cassie was found dead in a motel room. How could you not like a girl so sad? Lia was in desperate need of a friend, a lifeline, and yet it seems like no one seems to understand. She's not totally lost. She loves her stepsister Emma fiercely and strikes up a friendship with a stranger, Elijah. Still, Lia has to be the one to banish her ghosts, to decide her life is worth living. It is a hard journey and a very sad one, but one I enjoyed taking with her.
Laurie Halse Anderson is poetic here in a way that is never seen in any of her other novels. It makes me kind of sad none of her other novels are like Wintergirls. No other eating disorder novels are like Wintergirls. I loved the secondary characters, particularly the innocent young Emma and the mysterious Elijah. Even Cassie, who we never actually get to meet, sticks out.
I would recommend this in a heartbeat! It is moving, poetic, and oddly hopeful in its depiction of a girl who fell down the rabbit hole and wasn't sure how to climb out.
When I say everything, I really do mean everything. Before Wintergirls, I was a fan of chick-lit, of soppy romance stories and cute endings. I had never experienced anything like Wintergirls, and I couldn't go back. Wintergirls lead me to Ellen Hopkins and Sara Zarr. It lead me to the serious young adult fiction, the books filled with heartbreaking problems and characters I connected with. It changed my reading. It also changed my interests. I became, for a lack of a better word, fascinated with eating disorders and the cause of them. I wanted to know what drove these girls and what could help them. This road lead me to many good books and a memoir called Brave Girl Eating (wonderful book; I'd definitely recommend it). Then I did my 8th grade research paper on treatments for eating disorders. Now it is something that always catches my attention (and has caused me to watch my favorite cousin, who has very strange eating habits, a little more closely).
Lia wasn't hard for me to like. She had isolated herself away from people, away from both her parents, from her classmates, because of her obsession with what she eats. She counts the calories of every single thing she eats, contemplates the best way to trick her stepmother into thinking she was gaining weight/eating. Lia is scared and lonely and a little bit more than lost when her best friend Cassie was found dead in a motel room. How could you not like a girl so sad? Lia was in desperate need of a friend, a lifeline, and yet it seems like no one seems to understand. She's not totally lost. She loves her stepsister Emma fiercely and strikes up a friendship with a stranger, Elijah. Still, Lia has to be the one to banish her ghosts, to decide her life is worth living. It is a hard journey and a very sad one, but one I enjoyed taking with her.
Laurie Halse Anderson is poetic here in a way that is never seen in any of her other novels. It makes me kind of sad none of her other novels are like Wintergirls. No other eating disorder novels are like Wintergirls. I loved the secondary characters, particularly the innocent young Emma and the mysterious Elijah. Even Cassie, who we never actually get to meet, sticks out.
I would recommend this in a heartbeat! It is moving, poetic, and oddly hopeful in its depiction of a girl who fell down the rabbit hole and wasn't sure how to climb out.