Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson


WINTERGIRLS
BY LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON
PUBLISHED: 2009
AVERAGE RATING: 3.99
278 PAGES
★☆☆☆☆

(Review published: January 28, 2015) 

This book regularly popped up as recommended for me on Goodreads, so I thought that I would just give it a shot and see what it was like. I’d never heard about Laurie Halse Anderson, the author of this book, so I was kind of excited about reading someone new.

First of all the book is about a girl named Lia who have a eating disorder, and throughout the book we get to know her relationship with this disorder, her relationship with her dead friend Cassie and her relationship with her family. Now, I want to say that I don’t have much knowledge about anorexia, and I don’t know much about it, so don’t get me wrong. 

I didn’t like the writing style, Anderson uses crossed out words a lot, now, some say that it’s because it’s Lia’s real thoughts, but for me, they kind of slowed down the paste, and eventually I didn’t really care to read them at all because they, as I said, slowed down the paste and that was pretty annoying. The chapter headings in the book is like this: 001.00 etc, and that was a big distraction that took me several chapters to even realize what they meant. So, something more that slowed down the paste during the book. 

I didn’t really connect to Lia and I never grew to like her either, which is really rare because I often find some things about the characters in the books I read that kind of make me relate or even feel like I’m the character, but this book didn’t do that to me. For me she sounded like a spoiled brat who was selfish and throughout the book I didn’t really care if she got well or not, I just wanted to be done with the book. If the book had been a success for me, it would have been a major part of the reading experience, knowing that she got well and that she’s doing good and all that. 

I find her kind of heartless and cold towards her parents, and she keeps referencing to the fact that she knows she’s starving herself, so she doesn’t do anything out of unawareness or confusion, she seems more reckless.

To my confusion I thought it would give me more insight in how the world of someone with a decease like this lives, how their lives are, maybe that it would give me some kind of understanding about it. And sure, I do get why people suddenly find themselves doing it, I mean, who doesn’t want to get skinnier? But the fact is that this book kind of ended up as a freaking manual to how to get Anorexia, and I don’t think that’s the proper way to write a book. I’ve never had any real connections with eating disorders, because I was always scared of getting one, but it can also serve as a relatable book to people who have this disorder, and I’m sure that some people would love it, I mean, looking down the reviews on Goodreads I was surprised to see how many people put five stars on it, so I think this book is more about taste than it has to whether or not it’s good written. If the subject is something you’re interested in, maybe it’ll serve you a purpose more than it did for me. 


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