Thursday, February 2, 2017

Book Review #678 - Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

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"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 are best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the skinniest. But what comes after size zero and size double-zero? When Cassie succumbs to the demons within, Lia feels she is being haunted by her friend’s restless spirit.

Laurie Halse Anderson explores Lia’s descent into the powerful vortex of anorexia, and her painful path toward recovery.


My Rating: 3.5/5


This is my second Laurie Halse Anderson book with the first being Speak

Both books are similar in that they deal with mental illness. With Speak it was selective mutism whereas Wintergirls dealt with anorexia and bulimia. 

I found the protagonist Lia very frustrating at times. I felt like she was full of excuses of why she is the way she is, when really she just needed to be honest with herself.
 
Anorexia is a subject I know nothing about and after reading this book I still don't feel like I know that much about it. 

I didn't like how this book always seemed to go off into different tangents. The hallucinations, although probably realistic due to Lia starving herself and her 'brain shrinking' but I thought they were a little over the top. 

Lia's sister Emma was my favourite character. She was the only character in the ENTIRE book who was seemingly not damaged in some way. 

I feel like I didn't really have the emotional understanding to completely love this book. I felt sorry for Lia but mostly I felt frustrated that she would do that to herself.

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