Wintergirls are girls whose eating disorders have driven to the no man's land between alive and dead. Anderson's novel tells the story of Lia, an anorexic and cutter, and her best friend Cassie, a bulimic. The novel begins with Cassie's death alone in a motel room. The night she dies, Cassie had called her estranged friend Lia thirty-three times. Lia didn't answer. Cassie had hurt her too deeply when she ended their friendship, blaming Cassie for all of her problems. Lia couldn't have known what state Cassie was in, how desperate her situtaion, but she still suffers with guilt. Lia has been hospitalized twice at New Seasons, a facility for those suffering with eating disorders. Still Lia has not recovered from her disease, she has simply developed ways to fool her parents and stepmother into believing she's staying above the danger zone. Lia is obsessed with calorie intake and calorie burn. She can recite the calorie count of every bite of food she puts into her body. At times she spends hours on the stair climber after her dad and stepmother are asleep. One day, for example, she ends that day at a 1,500 calorie deficit. Lia is losing a dangerous amount of weight but hides it from her stepmother's weekly weigh ins by drinking water prior to weighing and sewing quarters into the pockets of her robe. As Lia's weight slips lower and lower (99 pounds, 95 pounds, 89 pound), her mind becomes increasingly cloudy. Her parents and stepmother become concerned and try to talk to her, but each one is busy in his or her own way ( Dad with his book, Mom with her patients, Stepmom with her daughter), and they let the situation continue to spiral out of control for far too long. Lia also begins cutting again, first, just small cuts on her hips, but later, as her disease hits its climax, she cuts her neck and between her ribs, requiring thirty-three stiches and a hospital stay to get her stabilized. Her younger sister is the one who finds her covered in blood. She forced to stay with her mother until a bed opens for her at New Seasons and will be watched constantly by her mother or a paid nurse. Her intake and output will also be constantly monitored. Her parents are finally taking her situation seriously, though her mother and father worry that New Seasons will not help Lia because Lia doesn't really want help. Lia is also scheduled for an appointment with her psychiatrist. When her stepmother takes her to the appointment and tells her the pain and problems she has caused her stepsister, as well as how she will likely no longer be allowed to live at her father's, Lia is driven to another crisis point. She finally opens up to her psychiatrist and shares that she is seeing Cassie's ghost and that Cassie wants her to join her in death. The psychiatrist feels that Lia has made an important breakthrough, but she her stepmother doesn't show up to pick her up on time, she runs, emptying her bank account and searching out the hotel where Cassie died and the young man who found her. She is hoping to run away with him, to leave behind her family and the pain she has caused. When the boy ends up leaving Lia as she sleeps, she soon finds herself closer to death than she has ever been. She also finds, though, that she isn't ready to die. Amazingly, with direction from Cassie's ghost, she manages to call her mother for help, and she survives. She returns to New Seasons for a third time, but perhaps the third time is a charm because on this trip Lia has learned that she wants to live, and she is listening to the doctors and her family and her body for the first time.
I have enjoyed every novel by Laurie Halse Anderson that I have read, and
Wintergirls is no exception. Like Ellen Hopkins's
Crank, I feel that
Wintergirls is a novel that all teens should read, particularly young women. In today's world of fad diets, miraculous fat loss pills, bone thin models, and airbrushed magazines, it is no surprise that young men and women end up with a false self concept and are driven into the world of eating disorders. The additional issues that all young people deal with, like divorce or absentee parents, as in Lia's case, on serves to worsen the problem. These teens want control, and their bodies and what they eat are one thing they can control.
Wintergirls shows the truly ugly side of eating disorders--what they do not only to bodies but also what they do to family and friends. The novel shows, without apology, that death is a possible result, but that life is also a choice. The novel is accurate and timely and powerful and should be a part of every high school library's collection.
References
Anderson, L. H. (2009). Wintergirls. New York: Viking.
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