Book Summary:
This is the story of a young girl who is dealing with severe anorexia. The story displays for the reader her broken family relationships along with her struggles in friendship. The reader is able to see in harsh severity how anorexia (as well as other eating disorders) affect one's life, mind, family, etc.
Lia, the main character, is stunned by her best friend's death at the beginning of the book. She spends the rest of the book attempting to cope with her lack of support in her friend's time of need as well as manuevering her own issues with eating. Her family pushes her throughout the book to simply "eat", but Lia shows the reader through her thoughts and actions that her mind will not let her. The book takes the reader through what a struggle like anorexia looks like day-to-day and how it is not simple in any regard. Despite her family's attempts to help her, Lia shows that she must find it within herself to get the help she needs.
APA Reference of Book:
Anderson, L. H. (2009). Wintergirls. New York, NY: Viking.
Impressions:
My major impression of this book is that it was a difficult read. It was difficult not because it was not interesting or captivating in its style. It was difficult because of the content offered. It was difficult in the best way in that it provided incredible insight into a struggle that many young people fight. It provided such a deep perspective shift on those with eating disorders because it shared their deepest thoughts, cries, and motivations.
Anderson is an extraordinary writer. Her style is unlike anyone else in that she is able to describe things and situations in ways that most would never think of doing. This is incredibly powerful in this text because it makes the main character so relatable, even to those who have never experienced eating struggles.
The book, while slow at times, keeps the reader wondering what the outcome will be. Even I considered often that the main character might not make it to the end of the book alive. The struggle with eating is depicted in such a real and harsh light that the reader cannot help but consider how they treat, think about, and feel towards those around them who may be warring something similar. While this book is most certainly hard to read, it is an excellent resource for more mature readers (middle school and up) in that it allows them to see through another's eyes and come out with greater perspective and respect for those they encounter in real life.
Professional Review:
Grades 9-12. 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.
Reference:
Review of book Wintergirls, by L. H. Anderson. (2008). Booklist, 105(8). Retrieved from www.titlewave.com
Library Uses:
This text could be used during a realistic fiction/anti-bullying program held within the library. Students would be challenged to read a realistic fiction text in order to crawl in somebody else's skin. The student could then come up with an action plan to prevent the bullying of any student in their school.
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