Customer Reviews

Wintergirls

5 star:		(97)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I'm surprised there is so little criticism of this book!

I don't normally write reviews, but I finished the book a couple weeks ago and have been letting my thoughts simmer, unable to just forget it. Amazon seems to have eaten my review (maybe it will be posted in a couple days?). I decided to look for more dissenting opinions on here.

4 or 5 stars for great writing. Anderson creates a page turner and certainly has an admirable command of language.

2 stars for...more I'm surprised there is so little criticism of this book!

I don't normally write reviews, but I finished the book a couple weeks ago and have been letting my thoughts simmer, unable to just forget it. Amazon seems to have eaten my review (maybe it will be posted in a couple days?). I decided to look for more dissenting opinions on here.

4 or 5 stars for great writing. Anderson creates a page turner and certainly has an admirable command of language.

2 stars for depth.

Most articles and even many books about eating disorders focus on the horror! and the drama! and the hospitalizations! and the emaciation! of it all, making diseases like anorexia sound like sickly appealing bids for popularity. Anderson goes a little beyond that, but not far.

I can't really say that anything in this book is _wrong_. The obsessive thoughts and messages running through Lia's head are dead-on. Her behaviors are textbook, and the degradation of her body is sadly a reality for many.

We sense that something is not quite right in Lia's world, but Anderson never gives us enough information to speculate as to what's fueling the obsession. We see that Lia is grieving, we see that she hates her family, we see that her self esteem is cripplingly low - but there's not much more to her than that. The reader is likely to interpret her feelings as little more than ordinary teenage angst - when eating disorders are about so much more than that.

I hesitate to write this, because there is no one-size-fits-all description of someone with anorexia or bulimia. But I do wonder at the stereotypes Anderson chooses to embrace and reject. Here's what we know about Cassie: she's an over-extended people-pleaser very involved in her community, but she has low self esteem. All of that sounds like textbook bulimia. Lia, on the other hand, is rich, unhappy, and the daughter of divorced parents. That's about all we know about her outside of her obsession with food and weight-loss. I seriously reject the notion that only rich girls develop anorexia. A stereotype that is commonly true of anorectics, though, is that they are perfectionists, and many are overachievers. Lia is none of these things - and although those aren't requirements for anorexia, Anderson doesn't give us anything else to go on. Lia doesn't care about her grades, doesn't care about pissing people off, doesn't want to go to college, doesn't really do anything or hold any aspirations other than her next goal weight. And while eating disorders commonly do reach this life-consuming point, we never get a glimpse of what Lia is aside from a series of behaviors and pounds lost.

To her credit, Anderson includes a paragraph or two describing anxiety. I respect her hesitation to avoid spelling out the lesson to be learned or gift-wrapping the text. But as a writer, Anderson fails to dig. The novel is more like a circus - strange and fascinating to watch, but several steps short of revealing.

To be fair, the novel _is_ accurate. It just isn't enough. I am really amazed by reviewers who say, "Wow, now I understand anorexia!" when Anderson describes only the obsessive thoughts in Lia's head (of course we have no idea why or how they got there) and the way she behaved in response to those thoughts. Readers, whether they know much or little about eating disorders, won't walk away having gained more insight than an article on Lindsay Lohan would give them.

Anderson notes that she interviewed clinicians and visited pro anorexia websites during her research. I just don't feel that that was sufficient. People who are pro eating disorders are sure to love this book the way they love Wasted, but unlike Wasted, we see only the train wreck - without insight.

P.S. If I am going to nitpick insignificant details, here they are:
1) The police scene is not believable. You can access your voice mail from any phone. So they for sure would have investigated the messages further.
2) The car running out of gas (Lia of course drove it on empty for many miles) is too much of a forced, obvious metaphor for me, and Anderson seems a little too proud of this contrived feat.
3) The relationships are stiff. Not stiff the way a real relationship can be, but stiff the way they are written.

For real, Anderson is a gifted writer. But I think there is more to great literature than a captivating narrative.

As someone who has "recovered" from a six year battle with an eating disorder, I was hesitant to read this book at first. I've been afraid to read anything that could possibly be triggering, and that is exactly what this book was.
This book is a haunting, and all too familiar account (for me personally) of what life was like with an eating disorder.
However do not let this deter you from reading the book. Wintergirls pulled me back into what life was like living with an eating disorder as well as the misery of it, which is so brilliantly illustrated by Anderson in this novel.
Ultimately, the ending of the book calmed all the things the book triggered for me and it proved to be an emotional and heart wrenching story.
I DEFINITELY recommend Wintergirls for not only those who have suffered from an eating disorder, but anyone, as it allows readers to put themselves in the shoes of someone suffering from such a debilitating disease.

Wintergirls is a horrid novel. It made me sick to my stomach and I had to put it down multiple times and walk away just to take a breather. That said, Wintergirls is also one of the best novels I've read this year.

Wintergirls dives head first into the pain of eating disorders, something that I think is hard for healthy, eating-disorder-free teens to comprehend when they've never experienced anything similar. Relating with Lia wasn't easy for me, since I see very little of myself in her, but I was instantly drawn into her world and pulled along, for better or for worse.

Once you get past the first page, it's impossible to put down, and there's a chance a crane may have to be hauled in to pry it from your hands.

My favorite thing about this, hands down, was how Anderson developed Lia's character by putting down what she was really thinking, slashing it out, and writing what Lia felt she should be feeling. It gave us an inside look to her thoughts and it's probably one of the best characterization techniques used.

There's really nothing else I can say about this. It's one of the best book released this year. Read it. Now. (But I must advise this for mature readers only. It's not something that you would want your 9 year old little sister reading.)

[...]

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson tells the story of Lia, an eighteen-year-old who seems to have lost the will to live, and her struggle to find a reason not to slowly destroy herself. When the book first begins, Lia has already been in and out of the hospital several times (because of anorexia) and is now dealing with the death (due to bulimia) of her former best friend, Cassie. Throughout the story, the main character struggles with many problems, including depression, cutting herself, the divorce of her parents, hallucinations, low self-esteem and the loss of her friend, in addition to anorexia.

I can't say that I loved this book. I'm not even sure I liked it. However, I must admit that: I absolutely couldn't put it down because I could never wait to see what happened to Lia. Reading with a mixture of horror/disgust and suspense, I finished it in a matter of hours. I am undecided as to whether this is a truly worthwhile read, but if you're looking for a book to lose yourself in, this is certainly it. The story comes with a couple warning labels though:

Warning #1: This book would normally be labeled realistic fiction or some such thing, but for me it read more like a horror story. Because the psychological problems the main character were very severe, the story seemed often very illogical. Lia's perception of the world was often abstract, weird and sometimes downright creepy. An example: "The glasses vibrate with little screams when I touch them." (pg. 2) and "My body is eating itself, choppimg up muscles and throwing them in the fire so the engine doesn't seize.) (pg. 206) Looking back, the ugly, violent descriptions of the world were certainly part of the story and helped the reader understand just how Lia was feeling. However, this book is not for the faint of heart or easily scared. It gets particularly creepy *spoiler alert* when Lia starts seeing ghosts everywhere, and running into her dead best friend every night and sometimes in broad daylight.

Warning #2: It's not easy to relate to the main character. The girl obviously suffers from serious mental disorders, far past the realm of normal teenage insecurity and uncertainty. So don't necessarily read this expecting to learn anything about yourself or gain some insight to dealing with the stress of teenage years. Maybe it's just me, but Lia was so deeply disturbed I just couldn't find any parallels in my life.
In fact, the main character could get irritating at times. I hate to say this, because the whole time I was reading I was thinking how terrible it would be to be as desperate as Lia was and it was clear that she was suffering from depression (among other conditions), but at times it was hard not to get frustrated with the way she was just throwing her life away and resisting all attempts by others to help her. It didn't help that her best friend Cassie, the one who died and who influences Lia a lot, is fairly unlikable too.

On a similar topic, Warning #3: The one thing that has irritated about Anderson's books Speak and Wintergirls is the way she takes important, worthwhile issues and presents the most extreme, disturbing cases. Again, it could be just me and my personality, but the way the main characters dealt with their issues was frustrating. I can't blame Lia in Wintergirls, but the helpless main character in Speak just seemed whiny. What happened to her was awful and wrong, but she did nothing about it! She just let her misery and confusion wear away at her and slowly ruin her life. Inner strength does not always seem to be a theme in Laurie Halse Anderson's books. It could be argued that I'm completely missing the point, but I just can't admire or even relate to the characters in her stories, and, because I can't make a connection, it's difficult to fully appreciate the issue and take anything useful from the story.

I'd like to end on a more positive note: Warning #4: This book has a satisfying, fantastic ending that even I was extremely happy with. (That is, the very ending. I have some problems with the events leading up to the ending that I won't get into here, but I ultimately appreciate the way the character changes.) If you, for some inexplicable reason, do not like happy endings and would rather the story end in death, don't bother reading this book.

I'd never want to come review a book to simply bash it, and put down the hard, creative work of an author. In my own opinion of Wintergirls; it was not quite what it was cracked up to be. Keeping in mind that the novel is a fictional work, it seemed slightly "off." Maybe the author couldn't quite relate to the character she'd created. I'm not sure exactly what was missing. It without a doubt was much different than a memoir or personal account with an ED, Self Harm, etc. The connection just wasn't quite there.

Wintergirls is an alright, quick read for a boring day. I probably would choose something else though.

This is a truly captivating story about a teenage girl and her struggles with anorexia. Though it's a young adult novel, it is certainly a book I would recommend to anyone who has an interest in the welfare of young girls - whether you're a parent, relative, teacher, or friend of someone struggling with an eating disorder. Laurie Halse Anderson does an incredible job at portraying the clouded mindset of this disorder, as Lia, the main character, struggles with her weight at 99 pounds being 5'5". It's a quick and interesting read, as it's told from Lia's point of view - so it allows you to get an authentic view of the thought processes that exist with body image distortion. After the death of her best friend, Lia's world quickly spirals out of control, leaving you to flip pages faster than you can read them to find out if she's able to pull herself together. This book is certainly an educational piece that would be helpful for anyone to read - as it clearly portrays how relationships and life circumstances can cause a person to try and "gain control" in other ways - as in Lia's control (or lack thereof) with her weight.

- Monique Ritter, Author of The Song Unsung

I have been waiting forever to read this book after seeing so many positive things in the book blogging world. I was finally able to get a copy from the library and while it was a good book I was a little disappointed. The story did not really grab me the way other stories like Willow by Julia Hoban did. The topic itself of anorexia was extremely disturbing as you watch Lia's thought process over what she will or will not eat and how she will get rid of or balance out the "excess" calories.

The style of writing was also different. It's like reading Lia's diary or being in her head as she self-edits by striking through thoughts that are not what people would want to hear. It was a little strange at first but once I got used to it I enjoyed it. My favorite part was the part Cassie's "ghost" played in Lia's decisions. I loved how the story finally wrapped up. Overall, I would recommend this book but be prepared for some disturbing situations.