Review Detail

Laurie Halse Anderson has a legion of fans and Wintergirls wont disappoint any of them.  It is a stark portrayal of teenagers coping (or not) with eating disorders.  You cant be too squeamish to read Wintergirls, but it is so worth it.

The setting:  Lia is sixteen.  Her parents are divorced.  Her teacher father has remarried.  Her heart surgeon mother has not.  She has been in rehab twice.  After the second incarceration, Lia moved in with her dad.  She adores her younger step-sister, Emma.  Her parents dont understand her at all.  Lias childhood best friend, Cassie, was just found dead, alone in a sleazy motel room.  Cassie had called Lia 33 times the night she died and Lia didnt answer the phone.

In Wintergirls, you count calories with Lia.  You step on the scale with her and obsess that in rehab you were forced to eat so now you weigh 105 when you really want to weigh 95 or 90 or really 85.  You cope with never being warm enough because you dont have enough body fat and you are always tired, despite the fact that you sleep constantly.  You live the nightmares that Lia has about Cassie and the arguments she has with her parents.  You learn how she fools her parents into thinking that shes eating.  It is as real a depiction of eating disorders as can be written. 

As she did in Speak, Anderson has taken a difficult and important subject and put it in perspective.  While it doesnt answer the question of why some people develop eating disorders and some dont, it provides an understandable setting in which to get a better handle on these disorders.  Teens will relate to Lia and Cassie, the hardships they suffer in school and the tension that develops between teens and parents.  And parents can relate to the helplessness they feel in trying to understand the whys and the treatment of eating disorders.  And everyone will understand the devastation that occurs to the family members of someone with an eating disorder.

Almost everyone knows someone with an eating disorder, whether they are cognizant of the fact or not.  I cannot think of a person, adult or teen, who will not be affected in some way by reading Wintergirls.  Definitely in my top 5 books of 2009, Wintergirls is a must read