Did I like it? Yes!
You'll love it if you liked: Purge by Sarah Darer Littman, That Summer by Sarah Dessen, Cut by Patricia McCormick
Aura: Haunting and Intense
Read If: You're looking for something that truly affects you and is strongly insightful. Not a beach or fun or light read.
Narration: First Person
Main Character: Lia Marrigan Overbrook, 18 year old female
Themes: Anorexia, Self-Image Issues, Cutting, Death, Mental Conflict and Struggle
Plot: 9/10
Narration: 9.5/10
Characterization: 9.5/10
Overall: 9.5/10
Did I get bored anywhere? No.
Did any part confuse me? No. It was intense and a lot to take at once, but no.
Line/ Page Skippability: 0.5/5. Pretty much not at all. I didn't skip a single line.
Writing Style: Short Sentences, Crossed out lines for added effect, Descriptive, Graphic, Vivid, Informal.
Uniqueness: 9/10
Predictability: 0.5/10
Favourite Quotes: "For one moment we are not failed tests and broken condoms and
cheating on essays; we are crayons and lunch boxes and swinging so high our sneakers punch holes in the clouds."
'That's crap.' "One guy's crap is another guy's fertilizer."
Cover: 9/10
Song(s) to go with book: Frozen by Within Temptation, Any song by the band Evanescence
Ending: Hopeful, Realistic, Satisfying Closure. No fairytale-ishness.
Reading Priority: Must Read
Reading duration: Fast readers-Approx. 6 hours, Slow readers- Approx 10 days.
Synopsis:
"Dead girl walking," the boys say in the halls.
"Tell us your secret," the girls whisper, one toilet to another.
I am that girl.
I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.
I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.


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 stepmother is clueless. And the voice inside Lia's head keeps telling her to remain in control, stay strong, lose more, weigh 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.

WordVore Prod's Review:
Wintergirls is one of the best problem books I’ve read in a while. It deviates from being typical in any way, or only focusing on the issue itself rather than the person entrapped within the issue or the relationships that revolve around him/her. Lia is so very real yet so ethereal. The emotions she feels make her ethereal, yet we are given glimpses of a normal young girl lurking somewhere about within the obsessive fears of gaining weight. She feels that being thin is the only thing she can be good at, which is a complete giveaway that her self-esteem has hit rock-bottom. She is consumed by the illusion that empty equals strong, and the imagined ghost of her dead best friend, Cassie, further draws this illusion. Lia is always at a constant struggle of wanting to live and wanting to follow this illusion she believes is true. But deep down inside, she is aware that it is killing her. She is a wintergirl; encased in an ice fortress she has created for herself, pushing close ones away. But she displays signs of warmth—a human fire still trying to ignite inside of her—when she is with Emma, her stepsister who she treats no different than a blood sister. Relationships in the book are intricately woven, showing strains but also hopes of reconstruction. The narrative is so powerful and haunting, that no matter how different you are from Lia, you are bound to be pulled in and feel her emotions and her pains as if they were your own.
I found myself so strongly rooting for the side of Lia that wants to get better. I felt like yelling out to her “Come on! Eat! Open up!” and telling her to stop blaming herself and wipe off her guilt over Cassie’s death. It was nearly impossible to bring myself to blame her or think of her as “girl gone bad” or a “hopeless neurotic”. I wanted her to get better, genuinely. This is how any reader would empathize with Lia if they read this book, I’m sure. You can’t help but cheer on for this girl and want to reach out and help her take the baby steps towards improvement.

Labels: Anorexia, Laurie Halse Anderson, Self-Image Issues, Wintergirls, WorDissection

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