By Ariel Hasell
August 23, 2009

Being a teenager is more than just showing up at shopping malls and homecoming games. We review new fiction that explores the hard parts of life.

Wintergirls (Viking Children’s Books), by Laurie Halse Anderson, gives readers an insightful and heartbreaking look at Lia, a high school senior, battling anorexia. Lia — in and out of treatment centers herself — learns of the death of Cassie, her bulimic best friend.

She obsesses over the circumstances surrounding Cassie’s death, and consumed with guilt, suffers a relapse of her own disease. Lia’s desire to be an accomplished student, a good daughter, and reliable sister is directly at odds with her desire to become smaller and smaller. There are pages that repeat the words: “Must. Not. Eat.” Obviously, this is not going to be an easy battle for Lia.

Anderson is a celebrated young-adult author who captures the complexity of the modern, American teenage mind without reinforcing old strereotypes or relying on caricatures. In Wintergirls, Anderson maintains the tenor of her other works; her portrayal of anorexia is honest, enlightening, and doesn’t glamorize the disease, as other stories sometimes inadvertently do.

Age: 12+
Retail Price: $9
Available at: multiple sellers

Source: Grandparents

Editor’s Note: We would like to know what book you read this summer? dan@goldcoastchronicle.com