Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

     The book that I read this week was Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. This was a very interesting read and much different from the young adult novels that I typically read, which are science fiction. This novel focuses on girls who decide to compete on who can become the skinniest of the two. One of the main themes in this novel was the idea of friendship. This is particularly taking into account the two main girls, Lia and Cassie, that make the pact to become the skinniest girls. The book starts with the pact between the two girls and right off the bat you realize that this is not a normal friendship, but a messed up one that is focused on the outward appearance of each other. True friends would not care what each other look like, but think that the other is beautiful no matter what other people think. So it can be seen that these two girls ideas of friendship has been blurred by societal standards and how things such as magazines represent girls. Also the fact that they entered in a competition (pact) to who could becomes skinnier just shows that they don’t even ponder how this could effect the opposites health in the long run. 

     The character who showed the most development throughout the novel was Lia. She started out as someone who in a way encouraged her friend Cassie to stay bulimic until the point of no return leading to her death. There is also a possibility that her friend would not have died if Lia had answered just one of the 33 calls that she received from Cassie before her death. When she starts seeing Cassie’s ghost she seems to go to an even deeper place eventually leading to her to almost bleeding out. Though when she was in the motel and on the brink of death she decided that the reasons to live far out weighed why she was wanting to die. One of the major reasons was that she needed to stay alive for her little sister Emma who looked up to her. She looked up to her so much that she also rarely ate, so she decided for the betterment of Emma’s health that she needed to slowly recover from the long rode of anorexia that she had lived on for a very long time. 

     I feel that it could have included some perspectives of eating disorders from a male perspective. It seems that everyone thinks that eating disorders only pertain the females. Though in reality this could effect both genders. I feel that this novel shows one side of young adults that most authors would never think about addressing because it can be a touchy subject. If no author ever writes on this subject young adults would never be educated enough to know exactly what they are doing to their lives. I feel that this text would appeal highly to many high school students that have gone through what these characters do with their lives or even thought about doing these things. This book would help them become more educated on what exactly the repercussion of the actions are on young adults. 

Rating:B