Winter Girls Book Review

Jennifer Sherman
Book Review

Anderson, Laurie Halse. (2009). Wintergirls. New York: Penguin Group Publishing. 9780142415573.

From the very first sentence, we are brought inside Lia’s world. From the very first page we are thrown into Lia’s thoughts. We are manipulated by Lia’s concerns. We are consumed by Lia’s struggles and emotions. The line between where this high school student ends and the reader begins suddenly becomes blurred once the reader opens the door to Wintergirls.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson follows the story of an eighteen year old girl who is struggling with anorexia, cutting, and loss. It is told through the main character, Lia’s perspective as the reader is granted access to the thoughts that even the character herself cannot admit to.

The narration begins the day that Lia finds out that her best friend Cassie has died. We find out that Cassie died alone in a motel room. Was it suicide? Murder? Or something else? The cause of death is not revealed; however, what is revealed is that Cassie had called Lia several times before she died. The two girls had not spoken for months, as Cassie had decided that Lia was not good for her. Cassie did not want Lia’s struggles with anorexia and cutting to affect her life anymore, so she let Lia go. But why was she calling her? What did she want? And how can Lia live with the fact that she did not answer the phone?

Readers are granted an all access pass into every corner of Lia’s mind. We are able to watch as she covers up her weight loss every Tuesday at her stepmother’s weekly weigh-in. We are able to feel how detached she has felt from her mom Dr. Marrigan as she has always felt like just another one of her patients instead of a daughter. We are able to count each calorie, to feel each prick of a knife against her skin, and to fight against each thought or craving for food. As readers, we become more than an outsider looking in, we become the person that is going "to burn away my leg muscles until the sun comes up to exercise moderately for twenty minutes so I‘ll sleep better” (99). We become the person that is so withdrawn from her own life and desires that she has to edit her own thoughts in order to live with herself and continue to push forward in the world that she has created.

The character complexity of this book is amazing. Although the story is written through Lia’s point of view, we are allowed to see the unreliability and the flaws in Lia’s thinking. This is not only done though Lia’s crossing out of her initial reactions, which gives us insight into how her thoughts and actions are not always correlated. It is also done though the scenes with her mother, father, and her stepfamily. We are able to see what Lia cannot allow herself to see: her mother’s attempts at helping her, her father’s love, her stepmother’s feeling of helplessness and her concern for how Lia is affecting her stepsister Emma as well. This book’s ability to construct the readers in a way that makes them identify with Lia’s struggles, to not want to eat that cupcake and to lose that next pound, at the same time that they see the harm and the unhealthiness of these actions is amazing. The book is able to create that tension between desire and restraint, between will and want, between reality and construction. The book is able to position its readers as an outsider and insider simultaneously. Lia becomes more than just a patient or a girl in need. The readers become disoriented as Lia’s world and the real world become intertwined in their juxtaposition.

How will Lia move on? How will she get past the guilt of Cassie’s death? How will she find reality once again? Or will she be trapped forever, lost between life and death, as a winter girl?

“You’re not dead, but you’re not alive, either. You’re a winter girl, Lia-Lia, caught in between the worlds. You’re a ghost with a beating heart” (196).

Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World by Jennifer Armstrong

Jennifer Sherman
Literary Nonfiction
Response to Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World
When I opened Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World, I will admit that I was burdened with a bit of hesitation. I have never been excited to read nonfiction. Often times, people have recommended nonfiction books to me that have been glamorized into a narrative form that makes it not only readable but incredibly interesting. However, I still have never really found a nonfiction book that I could not put down. I have never found one that I have connected to. Now I would be lying if I said that I was absolutely enthralled by this book. However, I can honestly admit that I enjoyed it. There were moments when I didn’t want to put the book down. I craved to know what was going to happen next. I wanted to know how the ship was going to fall apart, what was going to happen to the dogs, how they were going to avoid freezing to death, and all the adventures along the way.

I was told from the beginning that all of these men were going to survive. At first I thought that this would detract from the suspense. I think often times nonfiction book lose their appeal because the readers know what is going to happen next. However, I did not find that with this book. If anything, knowing that they were all going to survive, attracted me more. I simply couldn’t believe. As I continued along I found myself doubting the validity of this book as I was astonished that they were going to make it out of this. I needed to read more.

One of the elements of the book that made it interesting for me, was its inside access technique. The author frequently threw in rather and strange and interesting tidbits about the expedition that were humorous and intriguing. Moments such as when Hudson entered the party in a bed sheet with a teapot on his head were little side bar moments that provided a necessary good-hearted distraction from the building of suspense and the daunting historical element of the book.

I entered this book knowing nothing about Antarctic or expeditions in general. Yet, this book attracted me with its historical content. It was written in a way that was fast-moving and interesting. Most importantly, I felt that if framed me as a reader really well. Books like this one that take place in a foreign and unfamiliar setting need to be set up well enough that the readers can picture what is going on. It is very easy for readers to lose interest in a book as they cannot visualize what is going on because the ideas are too foreign. So much of this book was dedicated to the actual maneuvers of the shift and their forms of attack against the cold and brutal conditions. This setting could have been completely alien to me. However, the author provided the right amount of background knowledge to give me enough of a foundation to understand what was happening.

The book started off with the “Just Imagine” statement that instantly brought us to the situation and the setting. It read, “Cold air masses sliding down the sides of the glaciers speed up until they become winds close to 200 miles…It is truly the most hostile environment this side of the moon” (1). These first few pages first put us in the environment. They described the setting and piqued our interests my giving us an idea of the situation. At the same time, these pages also gave us as the readers the background information needed to understand what was going on, why these explores were venturing off, and the risks that were at stake. I felt that the book did a very nice job of giving the readers a mix of setting and situation in order to orient the reader enough to enjoy the narrative without overwhelming them with too much, perhaps, incomprehensible, information.

This use of background information was utilized throughout the work, as the author sprinkled paragraphs of necessary background information that added intrigue to the story. A couple of examples of this were the discussion o of past expeditions and the common rise of mutiny (62-4) and the look at the history of how astronomers and explores have learned to tell an time and direction (72-75). These paragraphs went beyond the specific exploration in order to give some needed context for how these expedition compared to the others. They also added more interest to the book because they set up the idea of how devastating and common mutiny can be or how difficult and vital it is to keep track of time and direction. Both pieces of information added to the suspense of the narrative as a whole at the same time they taught the readers about explorations.

There were also several themes that I felt were well portrayed and thought-provoking in the narrative. I thought that the discussion of survival and its connection with companionship was very well developed. The book often looked at the need to stay together in order to make it. There was no allowance for mutiny or disagreement as they were forced to rely on one another in order to make it to the next day. It was interesting how the need for survival became the number one priority and everything else was of little importance. It was interesting to get that inside look at what it means to be faced with death and how they changes your way of life, your thought processes and your priories. I thought the moment when they were forced to discard all of their personal belongings was touching. It was interesting how Shackleton led the group and developed that camaraderie by being the first one to shed his gold off onto the sea. It was also heart wrenching to read about them throwing away their photographs of their loved ones. Yet, still they attempted to keep as many photographs of the trip as possible. Making history became more important than remembering the past.

Finally, I would like to mention a bit about the ending of the book. The book left the readers with the idea of giving up and moving on. It ends with Shackleton dying and holding on to the one thing that he could not do: the Antarctic. Shackleton never finished his trip. He never reached his goal and it haunted him to his death. This idea was an interesting way to end the book as made me think about the idea of ghosts. For while nobody died on this expedition, I think that many of them were affected in such a way that they were never quite the same. Shackleton was clearly consumed and driven by his desire to conquer the Antarctic. He would, and in a sense did, give up his life for it. Perhaps his priories were changed forever by this expedition. Perhaps, we can never be the same when that elusive dream is left unattained.