Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson. Viking, 2007.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. Viking, 2009.

Ms. Anderson is a skilled writer. Her contemporary YA novel Speak was “haunting and memorable.” (Semicolon review here.) Twisted, written from a male protagonist’s point of view is, well, rather twisted, but also thought-provoking even now, three weeks after I’ve read the book and returned it to the library. Wintergirls, Ms. Anderson’s newest novel, is twisted, haunting, and memorable and eventually crosses the line into downright disturbing.

Put it this way: I let my fourteen year old read Speak because I thought it dealt with a subject she should know about and be on guard against. I let her read Twisted because I thought she was naive about teenage boys and the fact that even “nice” boys think about sex . . . a lot, especially when confronted with immodestly and skimpily clad teenage girls. Ms. Anderson did an excellent job of getting inside the mind of a fairly typical teenage boy without making him into a saint or a hero or a total scumbag.

However, I don’t want Brown Bear Daughter to read Wintergirls. I’m not saying that the book is poorly written or pornographic, but do I really want my dancer daughter who already deals with body image issues (as do most teen girls) to read, to become immersed in, the seriously disturbed thoughts of a suicidal anorexic teenage girl? To read WIntergirls is to become immersed in an alternative universe in which thin is fat, eating is evil, and the self is to be annihilated. It’s scary and dark and very real. The book does hold out some hope, but not much.

So what I’m saying that it’s so well written that I don’t want impressionable teens to read it. Forget impressionable teens, impressionable anyage should beware. Enter at your own risk. Parental guidance suggested for both books, but there is some worthwhile stuff here.

Reading Wintergirls made me pray for those I know who have dealt with eating disorders or who are still living in the thrall of anorexia or bulimia. Reading Twisted reminded me of what a dangerous and twisted world we live in.