Book Review: Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

I rate it 4 out of 5 stars.

Overview:
“Dead girl walking”, the boys say in the halls.
“Tell us your secret”, the girls whisper, one toilet to another.
I am that girl.
I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through.
I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.

Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the skinniest. But what comes after size zero and size double-zero? When Cassie succumbs to the demons within, Lia feels she is being haunted by her friend’s restless spirit.

Laurie Halse Anderson explores Lia’s descent into the powerful vortex of anorexia, and her painful path toward recovery.  

Review: Anderson does it again. Queen of tough issues in YA Contemporary, this will not disappoint. Voice is so authentic and unique and the prose reads like a mix of poetry, puzzle, and lyric. The characters are complicated, multi-dimensional. With just a few careful descriptions, you immediately get a feel for the complexities of each character, their problems, and internal suffering. This was so convincingly written that I feel like I was inside of Lia's head. This is probably by far one of the best YA's on the issues of eating disorders and how it essentially affects the person and those all around them.