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Hardcover, 278 pages
Published March 19, 2009
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Buy it here:
Literary Awards:
Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award (RT Award) Nominee for Best Young Adult Novel (2009), An ALA/YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers (2010), YALSA Teens’ Top Ten (2010), Milwaukee County Teen Book Award (2010), Michigan Library Association Thumbs Up! Award Nominee (2010)
From Goodreads:
“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 Review:
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
Wintergirls is not a book for the faint at heart. It will grab you and pull you in and hold you down until you come gasping up for air! Though I have read other books about YA bingeing and purging and/or starving themselves, this one captures it best. It will shake you up, you’ll want to scream (especially at the parents) and it’ll stay with you long after you turn the last page. Wintergirls are not alive, but not dead. The obsession with food is EVERYTHING – how little, how much. You feel the agony. I was reading and eating at the same time and it made me really think and savor the act I take for granted. Wintergirls won the Milwaukee County Teen Book Award and was without a doubt deserving. I highly recommend this novel.
View all my reviews