Book review: Wintergirls

Anderson, Laurie Halse. (2009). Wintergirls. New York, NY: Penguin Group.

I took the knife out of my pocket and cut my palm, just a little. "I swear to be the skinniest girl in school, skinnier than you."

Cassie's eyes got big as the blood pooled in my hand. She grabbed the knife and slashed her palm. "I bet I'll be skinnier than you."

"No, don't make a bet. Let's be skinniest together."

"OK, but I'll be skinnier."

Such is the basis for the friendship of Lia and Cassie, which began in third grade when they lived across the street from each other. In third grade, Cassie punched a bully in Lia's defense; in fifth grade, Lia caught Cassie forcing herself to throw up sweets into her mother's rose bushes. By eighth grade, when they made the pact to compete to see who would be the thinnest, Lia said that she would "walk through fire" for Cassie.

When they were 18, the friendship had fallen apart, and Cassie was found dead in a bathroom at a run-down hotel, after attempting to call Lia 33 times. But Cassie continues to haunt Lia, appearing to her in the middle of the night, making her pillow smell like burnt sugar and gingerbread cookies; in the pharmacy to point out the shelf where the laxatives were located; in the waiting room of her psychologist's office to remind her to "stay strong." Meanwhile Lia is hovering between recovery and death from starvation--"neither dead nor alive, a wintergirl." She struggles with her father, a nationally-renowned history professor who destroyed his first marriage because he could not keep his pants zipped; her mother, a cardiologist who "can put her hands inside chests and fix broken hearts, but doesn't know what music I like;" and voices inside her own head, which scream "fat/ugly/stupid" every time she considers eating something. And the people around her who know that Lia must struggle with Cassie's death but do not understand why.

Anderson worked with therapists who specialize in eating disorders when writing this book. The insight into the mind of the anorectic is amazing, as is the insight into the nature of a poisonous friendship.