Book Review: Wintergirls

Laurie Halse Anderson tackles another tough topic in Wintergirls: Anorexia. But, as if that wasn't enough, she adds self-mutilation to the mix.

According to the book's blurb:

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 step-mother 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. 

I went into this book expecting to be disturbed, but never so poetically. If the image of anorexia and Lia's life doesn't stick with you, how the author paints it will. I haven't been so powerfully moved by the tragic beauty of a book since reading The Sky is Everywhere. While I enjoyed Anderson's Speak, Wintergirls rocked the foundations of my world. If I had to describe it in a word it would be: unsettling.

I've never suffered from an eating disorder, but I think that at some point in our lives, every girl considers it. We all feel that pressure to conform the stereotypical image of beauty, and hope that by being thin it might give us an ounce of self-worth. It's that very relatable aspect of this story that makes it so potent.

Yet Wintergirls goes a step further and shows the glittering, bloody edges of what happens when a girl goes too far for her perfect body.

But Anderson does it perfectly. We see everything from Lia's perspective and never through the author's lens. We see how RIGHT it is for Lia to do what she is doing, all the while recoiling because we know it's wrong. Lia is one of those girls whom you like despite what she's doing to herself. She's endearing. She tries so hard, but can't help but feel out of control. Her only way to have control is to starve and cut herself.

This book will make you wince, cry, shudder. But you won't be able to stop reading. And even when you're through, you won't be able to stop thinking about it.

Recommended: Absolutely.
Rating (out of five stars): 5 -- A perfect book, in my opinion.

Book Review: Speak

Speak  by Laurie Halse Anderson has become one of those notorious novels that you either love or loathe. Since it was so hyped up, I expected to be in the latter category, but there's a reason this story was a finalist for the National Book Award. It's powerful. Anderson doesn't waste time with pretty words or purple prose. We get it straight, realistic, right from the mouth of the 14-year-old girl living it.

According to the book's blurb:

Since the beginning of the school year, high school freshman Melinda has found that it's been getting harder and harder for her to speak out loud: "My throat is always sore, my lips raw.... Every time I try to talk to my parents or a teacher, I sputter or freeze.... It's like I have some kind of spastic laryngitis." What could have caused Melinda to suddenly fall mute? Could it be due to the fact that no one at school is speaking to her because she called the cops and got everyone busted at the seniors' big end-of-summer party? Or maybe it's because her parents' only form of communication is Post-It notes written on their way out the door to their nine-to-whenever jobs. While Melinda is bothered by these things, deep down she knows the real reason why she's been struck mute...

I confess, I already knew what traumatic event the MC, Melinda, went through before I read the book. But it made me more intrigued. It was one of those sensitive subjects that usually is overdone or underdone. To get it just right is difficult and, some would say, impossible. I think Ms. Anderson nailed it.

Melinda comes across as tormented by what happened, but I found that reasonable and not overly indulgent (as some people have argued). I liked how Ms. Anderson entwined her inability to voice her protests during the traumatic event with her declining willingness to speak, and (just to show you how skilled a writer Ms. Anderson is) Melinda is also given the chance to regain her voice in the perfect way.

The book made me hurt, wince, cry. Especially in the scene where Melinda faints in biology. It was so powerful. Wrenching. That scene, more than any other, pulled my heart out of my throat and crushed it.

I can understand why this is becoming recommended reading for teenagers.

Rating (out of five stars): 4
Recommended read: Most definitely. For victims of sexual assault as well as for people who think they "get" what it's like to be sexually assaulted.