Wintergirls is a novel written by author Laurie Halse Anderson in 2009. The book tells the story of an anorexic girl, Lia, struggling with her dead friend Cassie, her family members, and her own body. Sent to the hospital twice, Lia not only does not recover at all from her eating disorder, but she finds that Cassie’s death triggers her to fall deeper into the hole of self-harm. Anderson skillfully uses frequent symbolism in the book, which endows it with more depth and meaning.

The ghost of Cassie symbolizes Lia’s fear and thoughts of hurting herself. Throughout the exposition of the book, Anderson slowly reveals how Lia discovers that Cassie is dead, and she constantly blames herself for “killing” her; she had made a bet with Cassie on who could become the thinnest, fought with her, and didn’t answer her thirty-three phone calls on the day of her death. She couldn’t stop herself from thinking “…body found in a motel room, alone…”(1) Lia is constantly hurt by these scars. Unsure if it’s due to her low caloric intake or if these thoughts are to blame, Lia frequently has hallucinations of Cassie’s ghost, who scares her and urges her to hurt herself. During the climax, Lia has a very intense internal struggle with Cassie’s ghost, or more accurately, with her own fear, lingering at the brink of life and death. Ultimately, she wins over Cassie’s ghost and overcomes her fear. Lia’s disease, however, is not something that can be easily cured. At the very end, she learns to peacefully coexist with Cassie’s ghost and the fear in her heart, and thus receives proper treatment that prevents her from dying.

Knitting symbolizes Lia’s hope. It doesn’t predominantly appear in the beginning because Lia feels hopeless. But towards the end of the book, knitting gradually becomes more important, as Lia begins to accept herself. She thinks about weaving a gift for Emma, her stepsister, who seems to be the person she adores most. Even though Lia continues to deeply hurt her family by harming herself, she thinks there is still hope of repairing the relationship. She is not only knitting the blanket, but more important, she is knitting the story of her life, as she says: “I am spinning the silk threads of my story, weaving the fabric of my world.”(277) Only at this point does she realize that nothing can control her life but herself. Neither Cassie’s ghost nor her eating disorder can control her.

Cassie’s ghost and the knitting symbolize two mindsets inside Lia’s body that are constantly colliding. I could see the development of Lia’s character as she steps out her fear little by little and embraces hope. My favorite sentence of all in this book is probably the very last line, “I am thawing.”(278) She changes from a “wintergirl,” whose heart and mind are both frozen by Cassie’s death, the eating disorder, and many things going on in her life, to a “real girl” who has authentic emotions toward herself and the people around her. By the novel’s end, she no longer restrains herself from thinking and eating.

I was absolutely amazed by Wintergirls and couldn’t stop reading it. Discussing a common issue among young adults, it urges me to understand and thus sympathize with people like Lia. The wretchedness in them is not inborn, but instead originates from many outside factors – friends, family, teachers, etc. Therefore, my feeling after reading this book is, be kind to people, because you never know what they have experienced and how your unkind words might hurt them.