Thirty-three times Lia's estranged friend Cassie called her on that fateful night. Lia doesn't listen to the increasingly frantic messages until its too late. Cassie is found dead in a motel room, a victim of her eating disease. Lia is left with terrible pain and guilt that causes her anorexia and cutting habit to spin out of control.Wintergirls is a chilling novel in which every piece of food eaten is listed by its calorie count. It is told in the first person in a stream of consciousness with parents referred to in parenthesis by their professional titles, crossed-out. There are blank pages. The self-loathing permeates.
This year's Edwards Award author Laurie Halse Anderson has chosen to write about a very serious problem. I kept wondering what teens who have eating diseases will think as they read it. Anderson indicated that she consulted with professionals who work with teens with eating disorders to be sure she portrayed the thinking realistically. As Publisher's Weekly (Jan. 26, 2009) put it, "As difficult as reading this novel can be, it is more difficult to put down." An important read for librarians and other adults.
2 comments:
Many Laurie Halse Anderson's books deal with very serious subjects in a very thought provoking way. Despite the serious subjects, I haven't found them to be without hope and have found humor in them. Is this book similar? Is there some kind of resolution that can help teens in a similar situation deal with this disease? I look forward to reading this book.
The book does have a positive ending. Lia comes very close to killing herself but, in the end, decides she wants to live. She goes into a treatment program for the third time, but this time she is committed to working her program not gaming it.
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