Summary

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson tells a chilling story of seventeen year old Lia struggling to cope with the unraveling of her life. Even before the death of her former best friend Cassie that the novel opens with, Lia’s daily existence had been a fight for her life. The two friends spiraled into the depths of eating disorders together; a pact to become the skinniest girl in school had them bound to their drastic and destructive lifestyles and to each other. The novel follows Lia through her tumultuous struggle with the aftermath of Cassie’s death. Anorexia reenters her life full force, and alongside that she must also attempt to deal with the troubling presence of Cassie’s ghost, divorced parents that seem blind to the issues in her life that are threatening to consume her, overwhelming guilt for not answer the thirty-three calls in a row that Cassie left on her machine, pressure to be a good example for her younger step sister – all of this amidst the typical horrors of adolescence. Anderson takes readers on a journey from the very depths of Lia’s mind through the frozen tundra of her everyday life. Wintergirls is a haunting portrait of the destructive nature of eating disorders, and keeps readers in a cold state of terror, yearning with Lia to find warmth wherever possible.