Review: Wintergirls

by Laurie Halse Anderson
Young Adult, 288 pages.
Viking Juvenile (2009)
ISBN: 978-0670011100

At a recent Not Your Mother’s Book Club event, Laurie Halse Anderson mentioned a yearning that came over her before she sat down to write her latest book. She had to do something different, she said. She had to evolve as a writer because she felt she’d reached a ceiling. WINTERGIRLS is the result of that evolution.

I’m sure Laurie can surprise us and rock the YA landscape yet again but, after putting down this book, I have to wonder: where can a writer possibly go from here?

At the beginning of the book, Lia has just lost her best friend and fellow anorexic, Cassie. Anderson writes:

“Cassie’s at the morgue, I guess. Last night she slept there in a silver drawer, eyes getting used to the dark.”

As Lia navigates a world full of minefields — muffins, suspicious parents, a distant mother who wants to send her back to the eating disorder hospital — she is haunted. Figuratively, by the guilt of not answering the phone when Cassie called on the night of her death. Literally, by Cassie herself, who desperately wants Lia to give in to the anorexia and die so they can be together again.

Most of Anderson’s rich, shockingly inventive writing happens when Lia swirls around inside her disease, locked in a frightening cage of her own mind’s devising. Her brain commands her to starve her body, to cut herself, to tamper with the scale, to run away from home. Anderson has Lia describe herself as:

… a daughter who opens her own skin bag, wanting to let her shell fall to the ground so she can dance.

Already a wonderful, passionate and talented writer, Anderson weaves obsessive thoughts, numbers, pro-ana blog posts, vicious digs and ghostly echoes through Lia’s narration to underscore the torture of anorexia and self-hatred.

The language is poignant, beautiful and haunting. Lia speaks in a tongue all her own. And it is heavy. Dark. WINTERGIRLS is one of the most emotionally affecting books I have read in years. Lia’s world is so real, so honest and so downright horrifying that the reader can’t crawl out of it. Even after the book ends. It has been trailing me for days since I finished.

And after all that, the last few chapters come like an unexpected blue sky. After 250 pages of wanting to choke Lia, to force food down her throat (emotions portrayed by her beautifully human and well characterized parents), to slap her upside the head and scream that life is worth it, there is redemption. Since Lia dragged us through the depths of a frozen-over hell to get there, it is that much more poignant when it happens.

WINTERGIRLS features gripping writing, a vulnerable, absolutely engrossing voice and a story that every girl and woman should read.

For Readers: Everyone will know someone who hates themselves. They’ll recognize the urges they might have to be thinner, prettier, “better.” They’ll remember the echoes of gossip that chase Lia through the halls. This is not another “issue book” that some dowdy counselor will try to force on kids. This is the essential pulse of the self-esteem problems faced by every human being, especially by girls Lia’s age. Entering the world of WINTERGIRLS, “dangerland” as Lia calls it, will make you wince. It’ll make you cry. It will make you want to wrap your arms around yourself to feel your own warmth. There is atrocious self-hatred and self-injury in this book. That’s exactly why this is an important work. The ugliness of the reality in these pages doesn’t make it any less true.

For Writers: WINTERGIRLS will redefine the language YA writers are using. It will re-imagine the way a character talks about their problems. It will stretch the boundaries of first person narration. If you are thinking of writing a character who is obsessive, who is addled by something, who has body issues, who hurts his or herself, read this book. Anderson has absolutely nailed exactly how prevalent and destructive thoughts like Lia’s can be. If you are interested in research, you can see how well and deftly Anderson’s research appears here. Even if you have no interest in any of the above, read WINTERGIRLS anyway. Laurie Halse Anderson is one of the most innovative, brilliant and honest YA writers working today.

L-R: Yours truly, Laurie Halse Anderson, a young reader and Heidi R. Kling… Thanks to @DebbieDuncan for the picture!

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