So this week is our second week of blog posts and I decided I want to go along with the reading journey theme. This week I want to talk about a book I read in highschool that has really meant alot to me throughout the years. Let me give you some information about who I was as a freshman. So I have never been very cool or popular and I got bullied. A LOT. Because I was always bullied I tried to overcompensated and be cool. (It never worked.) I have always been very smart and so I tried to use that to my advantage and get the cool kids to like me. Essentially I was the nerdy kid the cool kids got to do their homework for them.
One day in english class one of the cooler girls was telling me about how she has a book report due and needed help with it. Well I had finished mine a couple days after having it assigned to us so I offered to help. The assignment was to pick a book read it and write about it. So I asked the girl how much she had read of her book and she replied telling me she hadn’t read any of it. So knowing how cool she was i offered to read the book and write it for her knowing i could finish the book that day and do the assignment by class the next day. The book she chose to read was Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson.
This book changed my life and I hope it may change other young girls and boys who may be struggling. Let me know if you have read the book in the comments. I would love to hear what you think of the book and what you may rate it. So for anyone who has not read the book I will tell you a little about it. Wintergirls follows the story of a young girl battling anorexia. Lia the main character is struggling with this mental illness while struggling to get over her best friend's death who was battling bulimia. Laurie depicts what it is like to feel these feelings so well it is almost like she is writing from personal experience it's eerily amazing. This book has quite a few triggers in it and I would definitely recommend anyone who is easily triggered by self harm, suicide, or eating disorders do not read this book. If you don’t have the issue of feeling triggered by those problems it is a must read.
So as a small little freshman I was constantly being bullied constantly being called fat or ugly, and I struggled with some of these issues that Lia and Cassie go through. I struggled with the feelings of depression and maybe even teetered on the edge of becoming anorexic or bulimic. One of the reasons why I didn’t fall into that terrible life style is mainly because of this book. This book truly shows what life is like when you go down a dark path such as this. Throughout the book Lia lies to her parents, finds ways to hide her not eating, and falls down a very very dark path. After reading the tale of this poor young girl that I related to I realized that I CANNOT follow her footsteps.
Even though the book is only 278 pages the story stuck with me long after I was finished. I had read the school’s copy of the book and never owned the book myself but i always had what I learned tucked into my mind. Finally after years I bought the book on my nook and read it in a day. I also just purchased a hard copy of the book just a few days ago because I loved it so much that I NEEDED to own an actual copy of it!
Wintergirls was published on March 19th 2009 with 278 pages, and an average rating of 3.99 stars out of 5. I for one think that this book deserves more than 3.99 stars. My rating for the book would be 5 out of 5 stars for sure. This book has seriously helped me in more ways than one and I cannot thank Laurie Halse Anderson enough. I also need to thank the girl from highschool that never did her own homework, because without her I would have never come across this amazing book. In all honestly I think that if I had not read this book my life may have turned out completely different. I am so glad that i read this book all those years ago and I glad I can share this book with all of you.
What I want to end things on is this. Sometimes life can be so so very hard that you don’t want to go on anymore, It’s okay to feel like that. I mean it when I say it is okay to feel that way. What is not okay is when you act on those feelings. So if you find something that drags you out of that funk hang on to it and remember the way you felt when you found it. Sometimes things just fall into your lap and help in just the right ways, other times you feel stranded and stuck like you will never get out. If you hang on to those things that fell into your lap things can feel maybe just a tad bit easier. That’s what happened to me with Wintergirls , and maybe this blog telling you to go read the book is what will help you! You never know so please my sweets don’t give up like Cassie, Lia’s best friend, did. Things almost always get better and if they don’t it truly is okay to ask for help. Asking for help may be the hardest thing you may ever have to do but sometimes that’s all you need to get better. Even if you just reach out to me I can help, I can listen, and I can give you someone to cry to. Everything will be okay.
Until next time,
- Ariel
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