Bagel (330), cream cheese (80), orange juice (110) = Too much, scary, horrifying. This is the way recovering anorexic, Lia, lives her life. Lia controls what she eats while every other aspect of her life spins out of control.
When we first meet Lia, her former best friend, Cassie, has just died and Lia feels guilty because she is the last person Cassie called before she died. Cassie called thirty-three times and Lia didn’t answer a single one of them. Cassie and Lia were childhood best friends. They did everything together, including playing in the tree house and swearing to be the skinniest girls ever. They called themselves the ‘matchstick girls.’ In high school, Cassie stopped talking to Lia and the friendship diminished. After her death, Lia is haunted by Cassie and her guilt for not answering Cassie’s many calls. Lia searches for answers, but struggles to figure out why Cassie called her. Then, Lia meets Elijah, a young man who works at the hotel where Cassie died and is likely the last person to talk to Cassie. Elijah gives Lia a message from Cassie: “Tell Lia she won” (219). Because Cassie had died, Lia is now the skinniest girl.
After Cassie’s death, Lia’s parents become concerned that it has awoken Lia’s old habits, although we come to learn that those habits never went away. Lia has had two separate recovering stints at New Seasons, a rehabilitation center. She gave the experts the answers they wanted to hear, ate the food she needed eat, and gained the necessary weight to be released. After leaving New Seasons the second time, she moves out of her over-bearing mother’s house and into her father and step-mother’s house. Throughout the story, it is apparent that Lia’s relationships with all of these adults are strained and the only relationship she cares about, the one with her step-sister Emma, is the one she almost destroys because of her eating disorder and cutting.
That’s just the beginning! Read Wintergirls to find out if Lia overcomes her struggles with anorexia and cutting.
Wintergirls is an exceptional piece of fiction that is based on very realistic issues: eating disorders, depression, and being lost. Many middle school and high school females and males face these issues and do not know how to overcome them and sometimes are not sure they want to overcome them. This novel is best suited for mature middle school or high school students. The issues discussed are very serious and the readers need to be able to handle them. Wintergirls has a somewhat slow start, where Anderson gives the reader a lot of background details. This could be beneficial to readers who need a lot of detail or who are reading below grade level. The story does not move too fast and readers will not get lost or confused. Anderson gives very rich character descriptions, which helps the reader remember who is who. In addition, the chapters are short and readers will be able to take frequent breaks without stopping in the middle of a chapter. Most importantly, Wintergirls is a novel that could be used as a literacy component in a health class. Despite being a piece of fiction, Wintergirls sheds light on the consequences of anorexia and cutting, which are two very serious issues that are discussed in middle school and high school health classes.
