karen's Reviews > Wintergirls

ariel says everyone loves this book, and that's probably true, these girls today are probably super-drawn to this kind of story. it's not bad, i just already have a favorite teen-problem-novel about anorexia, one that doesn't have the voice of this narrator, who was so immersed in her dreamworld, she frequently spoke in this forced-poetic voice that i found distracting:

"used to be that my whole body was my canvas - hot cuts lick my ribs, ladder rungs climbing my arms, thick milkweed stalks shooting up my thighs. when i moved to jenniferland, my father made one condition. a daughter who forgets how to eat, well that was bad, but it was just a phase and i was over it. but a daughter who opens her own skin bag, wanting to let her shell fall to the ground so she can dance? that was just sick."

"my hands read a braille map hewn from bone, starting with my hollow breasts threaded with blue-vein rivers thick with ice. i count my ribs like rosary beads, muttering incantations, fingers curling under the bony cage. they can almost touch what's hiding inside."

for me, that voice gets old pretty quick. and the constant crossouts (not pictured); it stands out and makes the layout eye-catching, but not in a positive way, to my elderly eye.

i honestly don't understand anorexia. me, i have no discipline. i lack the amount of self-control it takes to not eat the entire pint of ice cream. and even with all of the political/social pressure, i lack the interest/willpower to stop eating fuzzy baby animals. so the rigorous scrutiny of everything that passes the lips of the anorectic, the obsessing and calorie-memorizing and constant vigilance. shit, i'm in grad school, i don't need anything else to think about, for reals. why can't these girls channel this energy into something awesome, like painting or science and bridge-building? i know it is more complicated than all that, but it just seems exhausting and more trouble than it is worth.

this put a nice twist on the teenorexia novel; the way it takes it a step further and really plays upon the character's perceived culpability in the death of her best friend, which is of course a factor in her own illness, but is also a whole other potential novel. so i liked the layering of two different enmeshed problems - i appreciated its ambition, but ultimately i prefer my old tried and true book from my junior high "be aware fair".

i want to like her books so much, and there are still three i plan to read, but so far, the two i have read have seemed like books teen girls would really respond to, but i just can't get into.

but greg - sheesh - speak is like his all time favorite. he is such a girl. but not a little gollum-girl: