Review: Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Dear blog,

Summary (from Goodreads): Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in fragile bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the thinnest. But then Cassie suffers the ultimate loss-her life-and Lia is left behind, haunted by her friend's memory and racked with guilt for not being able to help save her. In her most powerfully moving novel since Speak, award-winning author Laurie Halse Anderson explores Lia's struggle, her painful path to recovery, and her desperate attempts to hold on to the most important thing of all-hope.

Review: Right now I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt, it's entirely humid and boiling outside and all the windows in the house are open.  I crave ice cream.  But Wintergirls is impressive (and slightly creepy) in that you can read it in this climate and still feel cold.  It totally leaps off the page.
Wintergirls is not an ideal summer read. It is not for the lighthearted. But it is one of the most disturbing, powerful books I've read in the last few months.

I think Laurie Halse Anderson took a risk with writing Lia the way that she did.  Her narration was cold and distant, like she was really keeping the reader at arms length.  She's one of those characters I didn't really like on a personal level, but totally had sympathy for anyway because of the downward spiral she fell into. I wasn't sure if I was going to like her, because I read Speak, one of Laurie Halse Anderson's contemporary "issues" novels, last year and I couldn't warm to Melinda however much I wanted to.  But Lia was interesting.  She had a personality, and just as importantly she had hobbies, which I think can sometimes get easily forgotten about in books dealing with contemporary issues: There's so much focus on one certain thing or event that defines the story, that the protagonists' background can get totally lost under everything else.  Naturally they're not the driving force of the story, but I still think that if you want to create an entirely likeable, fleshed-out sort of character, small things like hobbies can have a pleasantly surprising sort of effect.

The writing style took a little getting used to, as well.  There are lots of strikethroughs in the text, for example if she referred to her mum, then crossed out the world and referred to her as Dr. Marrigan to try and stop herself from getting too close to her.  It took a few chapters to adjust to that, but when I did it was a fantastic way of seeing into Lia's mind.  For a lot of the book she sounded cold and distant and slightly bitter.  Is it possible to feel like you're stood 100 miles away from someone, and there's just this big frozen wasteland between you, and still feel like you totally understand why they do the things they do and the entirely intense inner functionings of their mind? Lia is like that. I would run up to her and envelope her in a gigantic, entirely crushing bear hug, but I get the impression she would probably shove me away and ask what on earth I was doing. Oh, and, uh, she's fictional, so that also might stand in my way slightly.

But I digress.  The actual use of language, the choice of words and such, was fantastic for the most part.  It was entirely lyrical and flowing,  but there were a couple of points when Laurie Halse Andersen seemed to get almost too deep into all the similies and metaphors,  which made me busy trying to work out what she was saying I kind of forgot what she was actually comparing life/school/herself to in the first place. But aside from those few places here and there, the general flow of the words went pretty much uninterrupted. 

I guess my only real problem with the book was the ending.  Considering the rest of it was so hard-hitting and powerful, it left me feeling a little underwhelmed.  I mean, the actual turn of events were good, but I suppose that the way they were put across wasn't  as satisfying.  I can't really talk about it without giving it away, but it was quite hurried.  Like, once you'd reached the ending, that was the end and that was all there was to it, as opposed to going into more detail about Lia's gradual road on the way to recovery.

Still, I can totally disregard that because the rest of it was so intense, darkly poetic and thought-provoking.  It totally exceeded my expectations, as well, having only thought Speak was okay. But, anyway, this.  Wintergirls is totally unmissable.

In three words: Intense, haunting, cold.

Recommended for: Anyone who wants to gain insight into anorexia and self-harm. Book-clubs. Teenagers. Adults.

Rating: 4.5

Review: Massive by Julia Bell

Dear Blog,

This is a slightly short review, alas, but life interrupts my blogging like it too often does *sigh*.


Summary (from Goodreads): Weight has always been a big issue in Carmen's life. How could it not? Her mom is obsessed with the idea that thin equals beautiful, thin equals successful, thin equals the way to get what you want. Carmen knows that as far as her mom is concerned, there is only one option: be thin.

When her mother sweeps her off to live in the city, Carmen finds that her old world is disappearing. As her life spirals out of control Carmen begins to take charge of the only thing she can -- what she eats. If she were thin, very thin, could it all be different?


Review: I don't normally read a lot of contemporary fiction, and even less about eating disorders.  Mainly because I find it slightly depressing.  But you may or may have not noticed that I'm currently on a contemporary fiction kick, and so I bought it at a library sale a couple of weeks ago.   
 
I am a very lucky person.  I've never had anorexia or bulimia, and nor has anybody I know.  However, this means that I don't know if Massive describes having an eating disorder accurately or not.   One thing: am I the only one that's noticed that while the title of the book is written on the weighing scales on the front, the needle is actually pointing to the very smallest number of the scale, as if nobody was stood on it at all?  As if you were overweight, even if you weigh nothing at all. Perhaps I look at the covers of books too deeply.
  Massive is the sort of book that makes you want to go into the kitchen and eat something just because you  you don't want to suddenly and mysteriously want to be as thin as possible.  It also makes you realise how sinister some mother-daughter relationships can be; both should definitely read this. 


For such a short book, it's quite slow-going, and the bulimia/anorexia part of the book wasn't as huge an aspect of the story as I had thought.  It's about mothers, daughters, friends (and how evil they can be), growing up and many things in between, and although bulimia is a main part of the story, all these minor subplots and elements make up the rest of Massive and what ultimately drives Carmen towards eating disorders.  Carmen doesn't really want to be thin, doesn't really start throwing up her food until about half of even two-thirds of the way into the book.  I guess that's probably quite realistic- you can sort of see the change in her attitude towards food from the beginning of the book to the middle to the end, unfolding before your eyes.


Carmen was a nice enough character; nothing remarkably special, and, quote her mother in one scene, "God, do you ever say anything?"  I loathed her mother, Maria and didn't feel sorry for her in the least- but I think you were meant to dislike her. It's kind of hard to describe every person in the large cast of characters in such a small book, which means that some people are kind of distant and we never really understand them.  Carmen's grandparents, for example.  All we know about them is that her grandmother is overweight and her grand-dad won't cut down the hedge in the front garden.   It was interesting how perhaps Carmen's grandmother was always eating and then her daughters were forever dieting, and then it sort of passed on to Carmen, like a downward spiral or a circle you can't get out of.


One thing: At the end of the book, Carmen and her friend Paisley burn some Barbie dolls.  Although it was poignant and one of my favourite scene, burning plastic is bad.  I know this because when I was younger I put a plastic mixing bowl in the microwave while trying to melt some chocolate to make some fridge cake.


Summary: disturbing but in some parts funny in a twisted sort of way, and makes you think about food and families and how once something gets started it's hard to stop.  Rating: 3.