Wintergirls by Laurie
Halse Anderson: A Review
Laura Kenders
EDR 541
2/8/2016
"I'm not dead, but I'm not alive.
I'm a wintergirl.” Wintergirls is a young adult novel about
Lia, a teenager who struggles to fight for survival against anorexia,
and her grief over her best friend's eating disorder caused death.
This novel is a chilling expression of what it means to be affected
by an eating disorder, and the depression that coincides with it.
Throughout the novel, Anderson utilizes tools commonly used in young
adult literature, but puts a new spin on what it means to speak from
a young adult's perspective in first person. She keys us into Lia's
internal screaming, her depressive self-accusations, and the
overwhelming stages of grief and guilt that she faces at the death of
her best friend Cassie through Erickson's stage 7 on her journey to
self-actualization and independent identity.
Wintergirls begins in the middle of the chaos. Cassie and Lia have been best friends for over ten years, but in the few months before the story begins, they have drifted apart. They promised each other that they would be the skinniest girls in school, no matter what it took. They wouldn't be "fat fat fatties," no matter what toll it took on their bodies, their minds, or their friendship. Cassie struggles with bulimia, while Lia participates in self-starvation, or anorexia nervosa. Whenever Cassie would try to escape her illness, Lia would pull her back down.
When Cassie's body is found dead in a
motel room, Lia finds herself racked by guilt and depression. Her
already severe struggle with anorexia becomes a battle for life and
death, symptoms of her self-harm expressing themselves through
haunting visions of Cassie, her dead best friend. She is trapped in a
physical and mental battle for survival, as she struggles with
depression, self-harm, anorexia, and grief. She doesn't know who she
is anymore, she feels like a frozen shell of who she once was. Will
she ever be more than a winter girl? Will she ever find herself
again?
Lia's struggle of self-actualization is
prominent throughout the novel. She draws herself away from her
parents, identifying her mother through her formal title as "Dr." The only person that keeps her grounded is her little step
sister, Emma. Emma is a perfect picture of society's hypocritical
attitude towards weight - encouraged to eat very little, and criticized for enjoying food. Similarly, Lia's mother was also obsessed
over Lia's weight – feeding her tofu as a baby, and checking urine
samples to ensure proper nutrition. It's no wonder then that Lia's
journey to self-actualization begins by leaving her mother's house
and living with her father, step-mother, and step-sister. Ultimately,
Emma is the one who shakes her into the reality that she does need
professional for her internalized disorders. Psychologically, Lia's maturity is a matches with Erickson's
stage 6. She searches for intimacy with her family versus isolation
from, and ultimately finds herself through her connection with her
little sister, and through her a mutual friend of Cassie's.
In conclusion, Wintergirls is
a heart wrenching novel about a young woman's journey to
self-identity and recovery from anorexia. She experiences traumatic
losses, and self-injures along her path to independent identity, but
ultimately realizes that life is a process, and change is a journey. In the end, she begins to take the correct steps along that path. The first
person perspective places the reader into a shaken state of
self-hatred and self-accusations that begin on the first page, and
don't really find closure on the last one. However, Wintergirl,
is such an important read for teenagers, boys and girls alike, if
they struggle with self-esteem, and/or disordered eating, or even
just to get a good perspective on what it means to struggle with an
eating disorder. Thanks to Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls
provides an ultimate picture window of empathy into exactly what that
means, and how far one will go to escape.
Other young adult novels by Laurie Halse Anderson:
- Speak (1999)
- Catalyst (2002)
- Prom (2005)
- Twisted (2007)
- Fever 1793 (2000)
- Chains (2008)
- The Impossible Knife of Memory (2014)
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