Wintergirls (2009) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters edit see section history

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• Lia: An anorexic teenager who is having trouble getting over her best friend's death, and has lots of family issues. She has been anorexic since her tweens, and was submitted into a hospital for a short while, and is now under close surveillance by her estranged mother, who is a doctor and extremely protective.
• Cassie: Lia's former best friend, bulimic, who was found dead in a motel room.
• Jennifer: Lia's concerned step mother.
• Emma: Lia's younger step sister, probably the person Lia feels closest to.
• Elijah: Add a description of this character.
• Dr. Parker: Lia's therapist.
• Nanna Marrigan: Lia's maternal grandmother, a kindly woman who cared for Lia when she was too old for a babysitter, but still too young to be alone.
• Mrs. Parrish: Cassie's mother.
• Ms. Rostoff: The school counselor.
• Mira: One of Cassie's theatre friends.
• Charlie
• David: Lia's father. Often argues with Lia. Also oblivious to Lia's real condition.
• Chloe: Lia's estranged mother. She is an extreme workaholic, sometimes working 100 plus hour weeks as a doctor. Is very detached from Lia. Argues often with Lia.

Quotes edit see section history

• “Eating was hard. Breathing was hard. Living was hardest.”

• “The teachers tie us to our chairs and pour worlds into our ears.”

  Lia

• “I can't stop, but I can't keep going”

  Lia

• “Trust me, math is not worth crying about.”

• “What a b****. It's like she thinks she's your mother or something.”

  Elijah

• “Psychopaths can't afford fur coats.”

  Elijah

• “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.”

• “I won the wintergirl trip over the border into dangerland.”

• “In the complex math of elementary school, I was a whole number, not a fraction.”

  Lia

• “If I had lady-spider legs, I would weave a sky where the stars lined up. Mattresses would be tied down tight to their trucks, bodies would never crash through windshields. The moon would rise above the wine-dark sea and give babies only to maidens and musicians who had prayed long and hard. Lost girls wouldn't need compasses or maps. They would find gingerbread paths to lead them out of the forest and home again.They would never sleep in silver boxes with white velvet sheets, not until they were wrinkled-paper grandmas and ready for the trip.The spider sighs and sings quietly to herself.”

  Lia

• “Would <being locked up on a psych ward> be worse than the grown women who lived on our hall but didn't talk to us much? Wintergirls who were twenty-five, thirty, fifty-seven years old, walking around in their eleven-year-old bone cages, empty caves with bleeding eyes dragging from one treatment to the next, always being weighed, never being enough. One day the wind will carry them off. Nobody will notice.”

  Lia

• “"Do I joke with you about food?" I have to stay strong--bend, but not break. "One muffin.""Two muffins. You need the carbs.""One and the eggs."She takes another deep breathe. "Deal."”

• “I understood what triggered her earthquakes, most of them.”

  Lia

• “There's no point in asking why, even though everybody will. I know why. The harder question is 'why not?' I can't believe she ran out of answers before I did.”

  Lia

• “If I run or breathe too deep, the cheap stitches holding me together will snap, and all the stickiness inside will pour out and burn through the concrete.”

  Lia

• “They tied me back together, but they didn't use double knots. My insides are draining out of the fault lines in my skin, I can feel it, but every time I check the bandages, they're dry.”

  Lia

• “You’re not dead, but you’re not alive, either. You’re a wintergirl, Lia-Lia, caught in between the worlds. You’re a ghost with a beating heart.”

  Lia

• “Who wants to recover? It took me years to get that tiny. I wasn’t sick; I was strong.”

  Lia

• “that’s the problem. When you’re alive, people can hurt you. It’s easier to crawl into a bone cage or a snowdrift of confusion. It’s easier to lock everybody out. But it’s a lie.”

  Lia

• “The dead do walk and haunt and crawl into your bed at night. Ghosts sneak into your head when you’re not looking. Stars line up and volcanoes birth out bits of glass that foretell the future. Poison berries make girls stronger, but sometimes kill them. If you howl at the moon and swear on your blood, anything you desire will be yours. Be careful what you wish for. There’s always a catch.”

  Lia

• “Here stands a girl clutching a knife. There is grease on the stove, blood in the air, and angry words piled in the corners. We are trained not to see it, not to see any of it.”

  Lia

• “There's no point in asking why, even though everybody will. I know why. The harder question is "why not?" I can't believe she ran out of answers before I did.”

  Lia

• “They leap into battle, the steps to the dance burned into their muscle memory. I pull a candle close to me and push the soft wax at the top of it into the blue flame.”

  Lia

• “I don't know how they do it. I don't know how anybody does it, waking up every morning and eating and moving from the bus to the assembly line, where the teacher-bots inject us with Subject A and Subject B, and passing every test they give us.”

  Lia

• “I knew what he wanted to hear. He couldn't stand me being sick. Nobody can. They only want to hear that you're healing, you're in recovery, taking it one day at a time. I you're locked into sick, you should stop wasting their time and just get dead.”

  Lia

• “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.”

  Lia

• “Food is life. And that's the problem. When you're alive, people can hurt you. It's easier to crawl into a bone cage or a snowdrift of confusion. It's easier to lock everybody out. But it's a lie.”

  Lia

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• Look in a mirror and find a ghost. Hear every heartbeat scream that everysinglething is wrong with you. “Why?” is the wrong question. Ask “Why not?”

  Highlighted by 152 Kindle customers

• (Who wants to recover? It took me years to get that tiny. I wasn’t sick; I was strong.)

  Highlighted by 130 Kindle customers

• “You’re not dead, but you’re not alive, either. You’re a wintergirl, Lia-Lia, caught in between the worlds. You’re a ghost with a beating heart.

  Highlighted by 129 Kindle customers

• And that’s the problem. When you’re alive, people can hurt you. It’s easier to crawl into a bone cage or a snowdrift of confusion. It’s easier to lock everybody out. But it’s a lie.

  Highlighted by 128 Kindle customers

• 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.

  Highlighted by 128 Kindle customers

• The dead do walk and haunt and crawl into your bed at night. Ghosts sneak into your head when you’re not looking. Stars line up and volcanoes birth out bits of glass that foretell the future. Poison berries make girls stronger, but sometimes kill them. If you howl at the moon and swear on your blood, anything you desire will be yours. Be careful what you wish for. There’s always a catch.

  Highlighted by 117 Kindle customers

• The sentences build a fence around her, a Times Roman 10-point barricade, to keep the thorny voices in her head from getting too close.

  Highlighted by 115 Kindle customers

• Here stands a girl clutching a knife. There is grease on the stove, blood in the air, and angry words piled in the corners. We are trained not to see it, not to see any of it.

  Highlighted by 112 Kindle customers

• There is no safer. There’s not even safe, never has been.

  Highlighted by 91 Kindle customers

• I shouldn’t. I can’t. I don’t deserve it. I’m a fat load and I disgust myself. I take up too much space already. I am an ugly, nasty hypocrite. I am trouble. I am a waste. I want to go to sleep and not wake up, but I don’t want to die. I want to eat like a normal person eats, but I need to see my bones or I will hate myself even more and I might cut out my heart or take every pill that was ever made.

  Highlighted by 83 Kindle customers

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Brussels
• Room number 13: This is the room at the hotel where Cassie's body was found.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Symbol: the number 33: The number of times Cassie called Lia.The number of stitches Lia had to get.The number of beats per minute her heart was when she was entered into a hospital.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Laurie Halse Anderson (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• ALA Best Book for Young Adult (2010, #10)

Notes for Parents edit see section history

somethings mentioned in this book might scare little kids so this book is probably best for young adults-Tough situations and harsh language. Better for young adults

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Teens › Social Issues › Suicide › Fiction
• Books › Teens › Authors, A-Z › ( A ) › Anderson, Laurie Halse
• Books › Teens › Social Issues › Being a Teen
• Books › Teens › Health, Mind & Body › Body Image
• Books › Teens › Health, Mind & Body › Eating Disorders

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