Review of Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

I read Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson because of how amazing I found Speak. This'll be the first time I review something by the same author twice, which you'd understand, if you've ever read anything by Laurie.




Cassie and Lia were best friends ever since Cassie moved in next door, and Wintergirls for almost as long. They were never going to be the smartest, prettiest, or most popular girls at their school, but there's something they can be: the skinniest.

So while Lia's father's on business trips and her mother's saving other peoples' lives, Lia's wasting away. Strong and empty, is her mantra.

When Cassie decides she wants out, Lia doesn't have a choice but to talk her out of it. They start to grow apart. And then Lia gets 33 calls from her on the night she dies alone in a motel.

Cassie's death to Lia just means that she won - she's the skinniest now. But that's no reason to stop now. She's 95, but why not 90? And then why not 85? In fact, why rest until there's nothing left?

Wintergirls is written in the unflinching and lyrical prose that Anderson does so well. The writing style itself is so beautiful I didn't feel I was doing it justice reading it in my head; I had to read it all out loud. My favorite passage of Wintergirls is:

We held hands when we walked down the gingerbread path into the forest, blood dripping from our fingers. We danced with witches and kissed monsters. We turned us into wintergirls, and when she tried to leave, I pulled her back into the snow because I was afraid to be alone.

Laurie Halse Anderson is by far one of my favorite authors. She tackles the biggest issues plaguing young adults realistically and heart-wrenchingly. Wintergirls explores the facts of eating disorders without pointing fingers or sugar-coating. It transcends the barrier between young adult and adult literature, and is a must-read for anyone. I rate it 6 out of 5.

In the comments, tell me what you think of Wintergirls, if you've read it. Otherwise, tell me what you'd like to see reviewed next.

Review of Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.

Again I'm ignoring my promised books to review. Instead, I'm reviewing Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, because of the Wesley Scroggins incident that has authors and readers 'speaking loudly'.

I read Speak roughly a month ago, due to great reviews of it from friends and on the internet. Also because it was a Printz Award honor book, and I always find myself fond of Printz Award winners.

The blurb of Speak reads:
Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't even know hate her from a distance. The safest place to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that's not safe. Because there's something she's trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have to speak the truth.

So Speak begins as Melinda starts the school year friendless, alone, and depressed. She has a highly disfunctional family, literally no friends, and thus no one to talk to. She rarely even speaks.

Throughout the narration of Melinda's bleak days at school and home, she lets on in flashbacks the events that lead up to her current state of friendlessness. She broke up a party the year before when she called the cops. The people who despise her for doing so have no idea that she was, in fact, raped at that party.

Melinda initially refuses to speak up about her abuse, and suffers through seeing the rapist at school day after day, being constantly reminded of it. Eventually, she speaks up.

Speak is a story that many girls could relate to. Every two minutes, someone in the USA is sexually assaulted. Forty-four percent of those people are women under the age of 18. It's common for rape victims to not speak up about their ordeal. Speak is an inspiring story for anyone; but specifically for those women, it encourages them to speak out.

Scroggins' opinion piece calls for censorship of this book, calling it "soft pornography" because of the two rape scenes it features. That label alone is both invalid and horrible. Pornography is designed to incite sexual excitement - to imply that rape is at all exciting for the victim is just plain sick.

Other authors targetted by Scroggins - such as Sarah Ockler, author of Twenty Boy Summer - and readers are Speaking Loudly against Scroggins' piece and against censorship. Both Saundra Mitchell and CJ Redwine, favorite authors of mine, have Spoken Loudly on their blogs, in brilliant fashion (Mitchell's post here, and Redwine's here).

Speak is a book everyone should be able to read. Censorship stands in the way of that - it decides for you what you can and cannot read. I give Speak a 5/5.