Wintergirls

The novel “Wintergirls” is dark story about a girl named Lia and her struggle overcoming a terrible eating disorder. Throughout the novel, we see Lia struggle with her eating disorder, recover from the death of her best friend, and restore her relationships with everybody around her.

The story starts off with sixteen year old Lia getting ready to head out the door for school. Lia lives with stepmother Jennifer, her father, and younger stepsister Emma. Lia adores Emma, does anything to make that little girl happy and is the only one we really see Lia show true emotion and compassion towards through the majority of the novel.

Right off the bat, we see Lia hiding her feelings. Her stepmother Jennifer nonchalantly told Lia that her best friend passed away; or rather was found dead in a motel room. Lia pretends she does not care and pretends she does not feel a thing. In reality, she is just cold. Cassie and Lia had not been friends in a long time, and the night before this, Cassie had called her 33 times, each time Lia sending them straight to voicemail.

Since the day Cassie’s family moved across the street from Lia’s mother’s house, Lia and Cassie were best friends. They did everything together, and were basically joined at the hip! That was all fine and safe until one year when they were twelve. Cassie had just come back from summer camp, and it was Labour Day weekend. Everyone on their street was partying and celebrating. There was so much food around, and Cassie was stuffing her face. Lia had left her for a minute to get a sweater, and came back to find Cassie throwing up in the bushes. Turns out, the girls Cassie met at camp were weight obsessed. While there, Cassie learned all about purging, binging, and how to eat as m...

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...hat the next few minutes were going to suck. Cassie told Lia she was dying. Lia’s liver had shut down hours before this, and her lungs were filling up with liquid. It was not until now that Lia realized she did not want to die.

Cassie wanted Lia to die, so they could be reunited, however Lia wanted to live for once, so she painfully wrestled away from Cassie, and dragged herself to main office to call her mother. Within minutes, the ambulance showed up, revived her heart, and transferred her to the New Seasons hospital. Unlike her previous visits to New Seasons, Lia wanted to get better this time. She did not resist the treatment or argue with doctors and nurses. She wanted to live, and started seeing reasons why she should. There was still a long journey until she was one hundred percent better, but the wintergirl Lia as we all knew her, was starting to thaw.