Wintergirls By Laurie Halse Anderson

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
ISBN: 978-0-670-01110-0
Pages: 278
Inside Flap Description:

Lia and Cassie were best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies. But now Cassie is dead. Lia's mother is busy saving other people's lives. Her father is away on business. Her step-mother is clueless. And the voice inside Lia's head keeps telling her to remain in control, stay strong, lose more, weight less. If she keeps on going this way--thin, thinner, thinnest--maybe she'll disappear altogether.

In her most emotionally wrenching, lyrically written book since the National Book Award finalist Speak, best-selling author Laurie Halse Anderson explores one girl's chilling descent into the all-consuming vortex of anorexia.

My Rating: A-

My Review:

I agree with what the description of the book says, this is a lyrically written book. It's so descriptive I could truly see everything that Lia saw. It was quite engrossing.
I do not feel that it was all that emotionally wrenching though. While I connected with reactions to Lia's actions as well as certain ways that Lia felt about specific situations, I found it hard to connect with her overall character.

The best part of this book though were the characters. I loved Lia's little sister and honestly I felt a great deal of empathy with her step-mother. I loved how two people, not blood related to the main character at all seemed the most supportive. I was surprised by the quick change at the end of the book, but obviously hoped it would come.

I would say that I recommend this for young teenage girls, but I'm not sure that I do. It reminds me of grade school when we would learn about drugs and how bad they were. Somehow though they would end up giving us the recipe for disaster before explaining the bad effects it could have. This book seems to read like a how-to. It quite obviously shows what could happen if you treated your body and mind this way, but I'm not sure that part would penetrate the young female mind that is pushed by society to look and act a certain way.

Overall a good book and I do recommend it. But don't buy this for your daughter if you even suspect she has self-esteem issues.