Wintergirls [Hardcover]

Laurie Halse Anderson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 19, 2009 | Age Level: 12 and up | Grade Level: 7 and up

“Dead girl walking,” the boys say in the halls.
“Tell us your secret,” the girls whisper, one toilet to another.
I am that girl.
I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.
I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.

Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the skinniest. But what comes after size zero and size double-zero? When Cassie succumbs to the demons within, Lia feels she is being haunted by her friend’s restless spirit.

In her most emotionally wrenching, lyrically written book since the multiple-award-winning Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson explores Lia’s descent into the powerful vortex of anorexia, and her painful path toward recovery.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Grade 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.—Carol A. Edwards, Denver Public Library
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From Booklist

*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. Grades 9-12. --Daniel Kraus

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Viking Juvenile (March 19, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067001110X
• ISBN-13: 978-0670011100
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (146 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #242,584 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Laurie Halse (rhymes with "waltz") Anderson pretended she was a polar bear when she walked to school through the snow of Syracuse, New York. As a little girl, she would pound away at her father's old typewriter for hours, writing newspaper columns, stories, and letters. She loved watching her father write poetry and reading the funnies on the floor of his office. Laurie fell in love with words when her second-grade teacher taught her how to write haiku. Her favorite book is the dictionary, which is a good thing because she is a terrible speller. She tried to read every book in her school library, a heavenly place. She loves librarians! One of her favorite books was Heidi. This led to curiosity about foreign cultures. As a senior in high school, she was an American Field Service exchange student to Denmark, where she lived on a pig farm. She skipped both her prom and graduation ceremonies and had a great time there. She can still speak Danish.

Laurie Halse Anderson never intended to be an author. At Georgetown University, she majored in foreign languages and linguistics. She hit the real world with no idea of what kind of work she wanted to do. She tried everything, including cleaning banks, milking cows and working as a stockbroker. She hated all of it. Working as a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer was a slight improvement, but she eventually quit to write books. After eight long, rejection-filled years, she has finally qualified as an overnight success.

Laurie's books for children and teenagers have attracted a lot of attention. Her first novel, Speak, was a National Book Award Finalist, a Michael L. Printz Honor book, a New York Times bestseller, and an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. Publisher's Weekly, called Speak "a stunning first novel," in which Ms. Anderson "uses keen observations and vivid imagery to pull readers into the head of an isolated teenager." Speak has been translated into sixteen foreign languages, including Chinese and Catalan. In 2005, the movie version was released. In addition to novels, Laurie writes chapter books for elementary age children and picture books for the pre-school set. She received the Margaret A. Edwards Award, given by the American Library Association for significant and lasting achievement in young adult literature, in 2009.

Laurie lives in Northern New York with her husband, Scot, and their dog, Kezzie. Scot designed and built a writing cottage for Laurie, where she writes daily. Along with writing, she enjoys gardening, running and hanging with her family.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is not About anorexia, March 21, 2009

By 

Mary Ann Downing "nancy drew" (alpharetta, ga) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Wintergirls (Hardcover)

Yes, Lia struggles with an eating disorder, but this is not another "problem" YA novel. The "problem" is that Lia has a messy life...tangled family relationships, guilt over opportunities lost, futures that frighten, pasts that seem mythically golden. In other words, Anderson has plunged straight into the heart and mind of a real teen. Usually I cheat and read reviews and the flap copy before I begin a book, but I decided to read this one "cold." The writing was so true and compelling, I had to keep reading and reading and reading...even though I was sitting in the middle of a mall that was about to close. This is NOT a book about anorexia, although that is one of the symptoms of Lia's true problem...learning to forgive herself for not being any of the many "versions" that the others in her life...her parents, stepmother, doctors, therapists, teachers, fellow students, but most of all her former friend Cassie...wish her to be. This is not a self-help book. It's a self-acceptance book. Yes, it is gritty and terrifying in some places. I am an adult, and have never had an eating disorder, but with her first paragraph Anderson yanked be back to my teenage self, and the (real-to-me) terrors that stalked my soul, the self-disgust for not "living up to my potential." I would recommend this to anyone over the age of fourteen...and ESPECIALLY PARENTS who might need a refresher course on just how stressful it is to be 18 or even 14.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and Haunting, May 18, 2009

By 

OpheliasOwn "jh17ophelia" (Upstate, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Wintergirls (Hardcover)

This is the story of an adolescent girl suffering from anorexia. It details her weight obsession for her as well as others, her careful calorie counting, and even her troubled thoughts that lead to her eating disorder and her cutting.

Anderson has not failed with this YA novel. Her past YA accomplishments have also broached difficult, socially taboo subjects (Speak, etc.), but I caution parents and teachers to read this book before assigning it to children. It is heavy subject matter, but the way the story unfolds and the insight into the main character's troubled mind are intense- they were even heavy for me! I live and work at a co-ed boarding school and deal with eating disorders, cutting, aggression, distorted body image, and so much more. I would have to be very sure of the maturity and emotional stability of a girl before suggesting this book.

Wintergirls is a perfect glimpse into the mind of a girl whose actions are almost unimaginable. It also allows the reader to understand how perplexed her family is, how much her actions hurt them, and why they don't understand why she can't just stop killing herself. I suggest this book for any teacher, parent, or adult who regularly deals with the trials and tribulations of female adolescence. It will undoubtedly shed some light upon the pain and torture of all involved with eating disorders.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the more chilling books I've read, May 21, 2009

By 

Michael Hickerson (Smyrna, TN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wintergirls (Hardcover)

I've read more than my fair share of scary stores--from the works of Edgar Allen Poe to Stephen King to Richard Matheson. But few of those works have ever chilled me, scared me and horrified me as much as Laurie Halse Anderson's "Wintergirls."

Part of it could be that Poe, King and Matheson are dealing in horrors that are terrifying but can be easily rationalized away as being supernatural in nature. The scary part of Anderson's novel is that what you're reading about is a...more I've read more than my fair share of scary stores--from the works of Edgar Allen Poe to Stephen King to Richard Matheson. But few of those works have ever chilled me, scared me and horrified me as much as Laurie Halse Anderson's "Wintergirls."

Part of it could be that Poe, King and Matheson are dealing in horrors that are terrifying but can be easily rationalized away as being supernatural in nature. The scary part of Anderson's novel is that what you're reading about is all too scarily real for a lot of young people in our world today.

Lia is a teenage girl with an eating disorder. The story is told from her first-person persepective, making it all the more compelling. As the story begins, Lia is coming to terms with the death of her one-time best friend Cassie. Cassie called Lia 33 times on the night of her death, but Lia never answered. Now, Lia is haunted by that in the most literal sense of the world. Cassie begins to appear to Lia, questioning her and slowly the novel reveals the nature of their friendship and the scary pact the two made together. One afternoon, the two decide to see who can be the thinnest among them.

The pact leads to two admissions to the hospital for Lia and she's slowly on the way to a third. Lia doesn't purge like Cassie does. Instead she denies herself anything more than 500 calories a day and spends hours exercising to try and reduce the few remaining pockets of perceived fat on her body. Lia is convinced that if you can't see bones through her skin, then she's too fat.

The obsession with becoming thin is scarily and eerily presented here. Lia focuses on the weight she wants to be, at one point saying the ideal weight would be zero for herself. Lia also feels like she has tiny evil forces inside her that are only released by cutting herself. She also goes to great lengths to ensure that her step-mother and father don't realize she's losing weight, including drinking copious amounts of water before weigh-ins and sewing quarters into her robe that she wears during the weigh-ins.

Even the horrifying revelation of how Cassie died doesn't deter Lia from her path toward destruction.

Lia's story is a scary, dark one that is probably all too real for many young women in our world today. Anderson's decision to tell the story from inside Lia's head and to see her internal battle with wanting food and convincing herself she can't have it is one of many incredibly vivid moments in a book that will keep your attention. I read and liked her novel "Speak" because it allowed readers inside the character's head. "Wintergirls" follows the same convention but takes it to a wholly different level. Readers will both identify with Lia, but we're kept detached enough to see that what she's doing isn't heroic, but self-destructive. You'll be rooting for her to get the help she so desparately need and as the situation slowly sinks into greater and greater dispair, you'll be hoping and praying Lia won't meet the same end as Cassie.