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? When Cassie succumbs to the demons within, Lia is haunted by her friend’s restless spirit.
In her most emotionally wrenching, lyrically written book since the multiple-award-winning Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson explores Lia’s descent into the powerful vortex of anorexia, and her painful path toward recovery.
This is a illuminating story about one girl's struggle with anorexia. It is stream of consciousness but it has more structure and you can follow with ease what is going on; it jumps around a lot in the narrator's head. I rather like this style because it makes the characters feel so real. I really get inside her head.
I am not sure how helpful books like this are. While it is important to have these issues out in the open, it seems like more sensationalizing the issue that, I think is linked to this "emo is cool" some teens embrace. Now, I understand that some people just tend towards dark expression; I think of Edgar Allen Poe. While, Poe was certainly not a mood/happiness/general life achievement role model--he died drunk in a ditch-- he was being himself and that honesty is commendable. But there are plenty of people who jump on the band wagon and think "it's cool to act like X" or "I will get attention by acting like X." In reality, such behaviors are dangerous and you might end up drunk in a ditch dead. Not a good way to go.
