On a hopeless mission to recover gravity in Rehobeth Beach, I stumbled across a Laurie Halse Anderson novel in a lame/awesome bookshop on the main street. I got halfway through, but then lost it in the wrong purse for a few days. Finally, tonight I finished it. (SPOILER ALERT: She survives the suicide attempt! Hooray!)

Winter Girls reminded me 1) of Wasted by Marya Hornbacher, which always inspired my college roommate and I to try to develop an eating disorder (oh Fletcher) until Meyers hid it and wouldn't let us read it AT ALL EVER NO WAY, and 2) of Catalyst, my favorite LHA novel, and 3) of Speak - LHA's most famous novel which was adapted to made-for-tv-movie starring a yet-to-be-discovered Kristen Stewart. I think she got raped in the story. At a party. The Winter Girls "heroine" was anorexic. The girls in her story always have significant girl problems. Eating disorders and getting raped and fighting with their bitchy friends and surviving the divorce of the parental unit.

I feel like these stories should make me feel well-adjusted and grateful and empowered to be a survivor. The only problem is, well, they don't. They don't make me feel well at all.