Wintergirls: Appreciation

     I just finished reading Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson.  It is about Lia and her former best friend Cassie.  They have known each other since about fifth grade, and both have serious eating disorders, Lia is Anorexic and Cassie was Bulimic.  Recently though, Cassie died late at night, alone, in a motel room.  Partially from the disorder, and partially from the huge amount of vodka she drank that night.  A couple months before the death, their friendship had ended.  On the night that Cassie died, she called Lia 33 times.  Lia figured that they were not friends any more, and Lia never once picked up.  Since they met, they have also been competing in a deadly contest to see who can be the skinniest girl in their grade.  Part of the reason they ever stopped being friends was because Cassie felt that Lia was encouraging her eating disorder, maybe because Lia did not want to be alone.  For never picking up, and kind of believing herself that she was bad to Cassie, Lia has been haunted by Cassie ever since.  

      

     Lia has always had serious problems, but now they are becoming far worse.  For example, Lia's sense of "strong" is completely distorted.  The considers staying strong to be not eating, like she is.  Staying clean and empty.  While she considers herself strong in these ways, she can only barely lift a ten pound plate.  By the end of the book she weighs about 85 pounds, with a goal of 80 pounds, and is about 5 1/2 feet tall.  Her goal is always 5 pounds lower than her current weight.  She even says that she will not be comfortable with herself until she weighs nothing.  Lia also cuts herself all the time.  As terrible as this is, things had been much worse for her since Cassie died.  For example, She envisions Cassie coming into her room every night and trying to kill her.  She "sees" Cassie everywhere.  During this whole time, she is totally convinced that it is the real Cassie. 

     

     Of course, Lia's eating disorder is a huge problem in the book.  But there are many other things behind it, some of which may have caused her to stop eating in the first place.  Lia also cuts herself, and has incredible body image issues.  For example, She made the bet with Cassie, her best friend, to be the skinniest girl in school on New Years Eve.  They were making resolutions, and Cassie had made some pretty good ones.  At the time, Lia had no idea what hers would be.  Until it occurred to her that being skinny was the only thing she was good at.  I think she feels that she is terrible at everything else, so why not be skinny.  She also does it because she loves how other girls are occasionally envious of her weight.  But I think she overdoes this.  Most people seemed to think that she was creepily and unhealthily skinny, only one or two girls were jealous.  Lia also thinks the idea of eating as gross.  She considers not eating to be clean, and that eating is letting germs and things into her body to ruin it.  Throughout the book, the author shows her real thoughts about how crazily hungry she is, and how they are crossed out and replaced in the text by thoughts of staying clean, empty, strong, and how she is a fat, ugly, loser.  Her family life is messed up too.  Her parents have never really done a good job, but now when they are trying, she rejects them and ignores them.  Some of which they might deserve, but at least they see how very unhealthy she is.  When her parents force to eat and go into treatment because of the possibility of her dying, she only tells them that they are blowing the whole problem out of proportion.  She sees her body as fat, and she completely believes it, just as she believes in the hallucinations of Cassie. 

     During Wintergirls you mostly see Lia's perspective.  One aspect of Lia's perspective that I find especially interesting, is how her original, real, hungry thoughts are shown first, and then crossed out, like they are in her mind, and replaced by sort of fake thoughts of wanting to be skinnier.  Within Lia's perspective, you see mainly see one side, but you get a glimpse of a whole new perspective within Lia in those crossed out lines. 

      Regarding justice in the book, her problems are not necessarily unjust.  Mostly, she had brought them upon herself.  In that way, Lia, the part of her that does things like hallucinate fake Cassies is the main antagonist.  Lia is almost more the antagonist than the protagonist in many sections of the book.  Often, the people around her, like her step-mom Jennifer and especially her friend Eli, are fighting for her more than she is for herself.  I find this very sad.  But I also think that she thinks that she is fighting for herself by staying anorexic.  She does not realize the seriousness of her problem, or even that it is actually a bad thing.  She is not becoming stronger by not eating , sometimes she has trouble realizing that. 

     I resisted the text pretty often in this book.  Especially when she talks about how people are hurting her by making her eat.  I resist then because I know how wrong she is, and how they are trying so hard to help her.  I also resist when she does something terrible.  For example, one time after she had been cutting herself all over her body very badly in the bathroom, she passes out.  Somehow, her much younger sister Emma finds her.  Emma is terrified.  She is seeing the big sister that she admires so much passed out on the floor, with blood all around her.  She also sees how skinny her sister is and it scares her.  Even Lia knows how wrong that was.  I resist at times like those because I wish that was not happening in the book.  

     I thought that Wintergirls was a very sad book, but I enjoyed reading it.  The story was good, it was an interesting perspective, and the writing was very good and poetic, fitting for the book.  Even though it may not be realistic, I like how the author hints at the end of the book that Lia will recover.