Author: Laurie Hale Anderson
Publisher: New York, N.Y. : Viking, c2009.
Plot Description:
Lia and Cassie were best friends with a common purpose. They supported each other when no one else would, and vowed to go down fighting everyone who was against them. But now Cassie is dead, and Lia is left to fight the fight by herself, with no one who understands her and her quest to be the thinnest, to be the one in control of every mouthful of food that goes into her mouth, to not be ruled by food like every other person in the world. Lia struggles against her family and everyone else as she tries to find a way to survive in a world she can’t understand. But she doesn’t realize that she is in a life and death battle with herself. Will her desire to remain a wintergirl be the last one she has?
Review:
A cutting and intense book about eating disorders and the way they utterly consume a person. While the subject matter is a bit intense for tweens, I think that this problem is prevalent enough that the book is appropriate for older tweens especially. This book looks frankly into one girl’s mind as she struggles with herself and comes to realize that she is killing herself and will die if she doesn’t stop. It is truly a chilling look at someone who is struggling with an illness that is not talked about enough as an actual disease, but more as something to cover in health class. I would definitely recommend it, especially to someone who knows someone struggling with this.
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Reading level: 8th-9th Grade
Similar Books: The Chosen One
Reader’s Advisory:
Personal thoughts- Intense but definitely worth the read
Subjects/themes- Eating Disorders, Anorexia, Bulimia, Best Friends, Guilt, Death
Character names/descriptions-
Lia- struggles against her family, a workaholic mother, a busy father and a
clueless stepmother
Cassie- Lia’s best friend, who dies alone in a hotel room after a 3 day binge ane
purge
Emma- Lia’s younger sister, who is ultimately the one who makes Lia remember
she wants to live and understand the destruction she has caused in the family
Annotation: “Dead Girl Walking” they say, I say I’m stronger than them all.
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