Wintergirls-- Laurie Halse Anderson

I was introduced to Laurie Halse Anderson's writing when I read her incredible novel Speak in a college young adult literature class. I recently found Wintergirls at the library, read the back, and lowered the bar because the plot description sounded so overdramatic... but man. Anderson's prose takes no prisoners, and this book does not disappoint.

Lia is a high school senior. She has divorced and distant parents, an eating disorder, and now a dead best friend. She and Cassie knew each other since they were little, and supported each other in everything, including the race to the bottom. Lia and Cassie hadn't spoken to each other in weeks when Lia got a late-night phone call. She turned off her phone, and in the morning she sees that Cassie called her 33 times. By that time, Lia has already learned that Cassie is dead.

Although we can assume why Cassie died, following Lia's thought process is the true horror. Even when she can be honest about the role she played in Cassie's life (revealing of relationships between teenage girls, sorry to say), even when she has moments of clarity about the destructiveness of her anorexia, she cannot normalize her relationship with food or her weight. Anderson offers her reader incredible insight, but this book is not for the faint of heart.