Stepping Into Dangerland
Before anything else, I want to wish my White-Harp a happy 21st birthday! Now she’s legally able to drink (not that age has stopped her before).
Sometimes books make me want to eat whatever the characters are eating. My friend Katranna (and Jo March of LITTLE WOMEN) have both mentioned THE PICKWICK PAPERS by Charles Dickens as a book that makes them hungry. In my case, when I was young, it was the REDWALL series by Brian Jacques, which would delve into the mouthwatering details of deeper’n'ever pie, otter hotroot’n'shrimp soup, and other culinary creations that made my indifferent-to-everything-but-bad-food mouth salivate with cravings.
Such was not the case of Laurie Halse Anderson‘s WINTERGIRLS. WINTERGIRLS practically made me go out and eat a few doughnuts (and I don’t even like doughnuts) out of obligation.
Review of WINTERGIRLS by Laurie Halse Anderson
Wingergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
It’s been a while since Lia and Cassie were best friends, let alone spoke to each other, but on the night Cassie dies—alone—in a broken-down motel room, she calls Lia 33 times.
Lia never picked up.
What follows is a heart-wrenching, emotionally-harrowing narrative about two girls who’ve dealt and are dealing with eating disorders. Cassie was bulimic and Lia is anorexic. But it’s more than a novel about girls wanting to be thin; WINTERGIRLS delves into the fragile mental and emotional state of these girls, their thoughts of perfection, their normal-dysfunctional family dynamics and how that affects their disorder. Cassie’s death has re-triggered the worst habits in Lia again and how her ED affects the family members in her life, especially her little step-sister Emma, is hard to read about. Lia has been into rehab twice, but as with anyone who has suffered a disorder, wanting to recover is the first step. Lia does not want to.
The novel is told in slightly-fractured prose, reflecting Lia’s fractured state of mind. It gutted me, because for all I wanted to smack Lia upside the head for being so stupid, part of me could understand and even admire her false-strength and her resolve. Admiration and disgust conflicted within me as I read, but I never stopped wanting Lia to get better. Laurie Halse Anderson owns my soul. I loved SPEAK, which reached into my chest and ripped out my heart, and now WINTERGIRLS decides to do the same. It also slapped me in the face and told me to go eat a doughnut.
So, so, so recommended. Just make sure you read with a box of tissues as well as doughnut-holes.
Speaking of altering appearances—but on a much lighter and much more vain note—I’m considering getting coloured contacts. Why? No particular reason. Last year I chopped all my hair off for the hell of it and this year I figure I’ll try something different.
(Warning: VANITY follows.)
I’m always torn about changing anything about my appearance because 1) I like how I look and 2) I am really, really lazy. Have gamine hair was fun while it lasted, but alas, hair grows (and mine grows ridiculously fast) and getting it trimmed every six weeks was taking its toll on my bank account. It’s the same reason I’ve stayed away from dyeing my hair (and I’ve always wanted to try platinum silver-blonde or bubblegum pink).
The other thing is, I sometimes look at photographs of myself and think that maybe leaving every au naturel would just look better. I like my natural hair colour and I like my eyes. Anything else would look like I’m trying too hard, which isn’t really the point. In the back of my mind I can hear my mother accusing me of dressing like a cartoon character (which is actually kind of true). My inner 16-year-old responds with But I just want to look speshul and diff’rnt!
Naturally me!
I wish hair colour and eye colour were as easy to change as clothes. Because I like my colouring, I want something subtle. Yet, there’s part of me that thinks To hell with subtle! If I’m going to do it, I may as well go all the way, no?
When I was little, I used to want to be blonde with green eyes and I firmly believed that I’d somehow achieve this by the magical age of 16. Remember, this is little JJ, who had no concept of genetics or even race. One day in preschool they taught us about black and white and I was sort of confused by this, so I came home and talked to my mother about it.
LITTLE JJ: Mum, I’m white, right?
MUM: …what?
LITTLE JJ: (looking at the colour of her skin) Well, I’m not black.
MUM: No, you’re not black. But you’re not exactly white either.
LITTLE JJ: (completely and utterly confused) I don’t get it.
MUM: (facepalms with a sigh)
After I read ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, I decided that I wanted to be redheaded. This was before the proliferation of sassy redheads in YA novels. But green eyes were pretty constant; besides, Anne also had green eyes before they became grey. I still think green is the prettiest colour for eyes, possibly because it’s rare. I surround myself with green-eyed fathers (Dad), boyfriends (Bear), friends (The Inimitable Bex), and fictional characters (Harry Potter). So I decided to go Acuvue (my contacts brand) and see what I’d look like with green eyes using their makeover tool.
Jade Green: Too much?
Put next to each other like this, I kind of like how strikingly black my eyes look. (My eyes are not that colour, alas—apparently black is not an actual eye colour.) I also look a little too much like Bear. (How unfair is it that a half-Indian boy could come out with such beautiful green eyes and extravagantly long black lashes? IT IS TOTALLY UNFAIR).
So, as Anne grew older, her eyes turned grey and my interest in eye colour shifted. Not to mention I was also reading Homer’s ODYSSEY at the same time as THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND by Elizabeth George Speare, both of which featured characters with grey eyes: Athene and Mercy. Also, does anyone else remember the book THE GIRL WITH SILVER EYES. Silver’s like grey, right? If I had grey eyes, I could move things with the power of my mind! (It’s sad, really, how much books have influenced every part of my life. Or not.)
But since both green and grey are really obvious changes, I thought about a lighter shade of brown. Golden eyes! Those might be even rarer than green or silver ones! Also, Honoré de Balzac wrote about une fille aux yeux d’or.
It's still in the brown family...right?
But I still worry about it being too IN YOUR FACE. My eyes are indeed very dark (not quite so black as the photo makes them seem). There are a variety of other options: hazel green and chestnut brown for the least noticeable changes. I actually really like the chestnut brown, but there is that inner 16-year-old who keeps whispering why not go all the way…?
