Wintergirls

This was such an interesting book! I will admit that I have not completely finished it yet, but I have read a large amount of it and have loved it so far.  I think that Anderson is a great Young Adult author.  I just read Speak for another class not long ago and I think that she does a great job of providing adolescents with real life, serious issues.  In Wintergirls the issue is that of eating disorders, anorexia and bulimia to be specific.  I think it is interesting that the book begins with one of the girls already being dead.  It kind of reminds me of Jay Asher’s 13 Reasons Why because the plot line begins sort of the same way.  In Asher’s book Hannah, a girl from school, has already committed suicide and is going to explain why through her tapes which is similar to Wintergirls starting with Cassie being dead and Lia retelling their story.  Upon my first reading there were a few very interesting aspects that I noticed.  First of all, I thought it was genius that Anderson wrote words then crossed them out in the novel.  For example, on page 148 of my version the texts reads “My mother Dr. Marrigan…” but there is a distinct line through the middle of “My mother.”  I think this is an interesting method because it distances that narrator from the people that she has relationships with, but it also allows readers to understand the relationship that the narrator has with those people.  Another interesting aspect is the subtle inclusion of caloric value of foods.  At first I didn’t notice.  I thought that the numbers might have related to a later page, or to the discussion leading section of the book so I took a look ahead to see what the reference was to only to realize there was no reference.  I quickly realized that Lia was counting calories so as to not intake too many within a given time.  This book, like many others that we have read for this class, presents a very real situation for young adult readers.  I believe that as we grow we become fixated on different things, and I believe that body image is one of those things.  As we grow and develop our bodies change drastically and becoming obsessed with body image is a very real possibility.  I would make the assumption that if anyone went into a high school they would find students who had some sort of eating disorder, although it may not be diagnosed and the student may not even realize that they suffer from such a disorder.  Anderson does a great job of presenting such a racy topic that I think this book would be great to use in class.  I do think it would be useful to give a warning before reading the book maybe by telling students what it is about and allowing them to discuss their discomforts in private if they have any so as not to accidentally bring out emotions in students that they may not want to let out.  As I said I think this is a great book and I think it would be interesting to use in a class.  With that being restated I give this book a B+ on the grade scale.  While I really enjoyed it, it just didn’t match up to some of my favorite books that I would give an A to.