I came across a post on Jezebel today about Laurie Halse Anderson’s new book, Wintergirls, and a New York Times piece on its potential to be a “trigger.” The book is about a girl with anorexia.
In the interest of full disclosure, I haven’t read Wintergirls yet. From what I know about Anderson and her books though, she’s an incredible YA writer who meticulously researches her subjects, everything from yellow fever to slavery to (now) eating disorders. She’s active in the YA community and is something of a darling among librarians.
Also in the interest of full disclosure, I am a woman who had an eating disorder as a teenager. I know a thing or two about “triggers” because I used them–at times I actively pursued them.
From the Times’ blog:
The new young adult novel “Wintergirls” by Laurie Halse Anderson explores the haunting struggle of a teen with anorexia. It’s one of the books featured in the Book Review’s special spring section on children’s books, and it raises a troubling question: In writing about eating disorders, are authors, unwittingly, creating an alluring guidebook to the disease?
Jezebel does a good job of answering the question and I pretty much agree with their take on the situation:
Kids are impressionable, but they also don’t need to be patronized, and no one needs to be protected from intelligent, sensitive work. Whatever our concerns, to target a smart book by a proven YA author seems to me disingenuous, and as any of those conscientiously-compiled banned books lists will shows, censorship of any kind is a very slippery slope.
I’m intrigued by this conversation. When I was sick, there were books that served as triggers for me: tell-all, self-help type guides by recovering anorexics, and YA novels by Francesca Lia Block’s (particularly the Witchbaby series). However, more than books it was television, celebrity magazines, and my own depression that caused me to indulge in self-destructive behavior. Also, it was the huge rush of hormones when I first went on the pill–but that’s another story.
I think it’s possible that if I was 16 and anorexic when Wintergirls came out, I’d somehow use it to further my eating disorder. But it’s way more likely that I’d use that frickin’ diet created Madonna’s trainer that Us Weekly can’t stop raving about.
This post is kind of all over the place and I apologize. Thoughts? I know there’s a whole other set of disorders and behaviors that have been explored in YA lit (cutting, for instance) and I’d love to hear from those of you who may have read them and have ideas.
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Teresa - I remember reading Go Ask Alice (a teen classic!) at about 13-14 and feeling such sympathy for the narrator, even though I had barely even smoked cigarettes or touched alcohol. To this day I have never done so much as smoke a joint, so clearly it was not a trigger for me in that way.
My issue with that book, though, is that the end is REALLY phony-melodramatic (as are a few parts throughout the book) and I thought the overall book was, in fact, incredibly patronizing and tried to scare kids straight about drugs while pretending to “tell all.” I later read somewhere that the whole book was likely a fabrication of some anonymous copywriter in a publishing house somewhere, and that made me very angry because I DID empathize with the anguish the character went through, even if I didn’t share her experiences, and I felt like it was anoter example of adults trying to manipulate kids to make them “be good.” I think that is so hurtful to teenagers–when you don’t have a lot of confidence in who you are or want to be, it doesn’t help to have adults spinning phony stories to try and scare you or get you to toe the line, without telling you what is really going on.
While I have never experienced an eating disorder, I do not think intelligently written, honest fiction would serve as a “guidebook” for teenagers unless, as you say, they are living the disease in some way already. I would imagine, in fact, that it would be something of a comfort so that someone dealing with a difficult illness wouldn’t feel like they were the only person in the world that it was happening to, you know?
The only YA fiction I ever used as any kind of guide book was “Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret” and that was totally just to learn how to play Seven Minutes in Heaven and do bust enhancement exercises (I was slow to develop, so it was a big concern for a few years there).
Also, Whit, I applaud you for being so frank about your struggle with an eating disorder when you were a teenager. You are such a strong and compassionate person, someone who I have always felt had a rare sense of self-possession. You don’t get that way without going through a unique kind of hell (in whatever form) in your formative years, and I am glad you made it through to be the happy, healthy, lovely person I am friends with today.
heather - i’ll second your francesca lia block trigger (although the hanged man was my particular poison). has she ever come out and said that she has/had an eating disorder? when i was reading her books in middle school, i didn’t notice, but when i re-read them now, all her characters seem to be really thin and plenty of them have food issues.
i’m kind of torn on the issue. i do think that censoring these books is unnecessary and pointless given the billions of other triggers out there, but i think the jezebel take on this book was a little shallow. i don’t think that you can necessarily compare “reading about bad behavior” with “reading about anorexia.” someone with an eating disorder intentionally seeks out triggers to inspire them to push them deeper into their disorder and related behavior; someone who’s doing drugs, to borrow the jezebel example, does not constantly seek out reading and viewing material centering around drugs so they can keep getting high. a book can’t give someone an eating disorder if they’re not predisposed to it, but it certainly can push someone predisposed to it down that path. (what can’t, though?)
when i was dealing with my own eating disorder, books (both fictional and non-) were my go-to trigger. there was a point where i had read every single eating disorders book my city’s libraries had. part of this was probably because i was such a huge reader, but part of it was that books capture the emotional experience of starvation so much more clearly than pictures of supermodels or magazine diet tips. looking at a picture of a 90-pound model could keep from eating for a few hours, but re-reading some passage from wasted or the best little girl in the world talking about how starvation=purity could keep me going for days. while i haven’t read wintergirls, i do think that this could be especially true for it because laurie halse anderson’s writing is so descriptive and evocative and so good at capturing her characters’ emotions.
ultimately, i agree with the article–even if authors didn’t write these books, there would still be a million triggers out there, so there’s no point in censoring authors (or authors censoring themselves) when books about eating disorders can also educate friends & family or encourage girls to seek recovery. but i do think it’s naive to think that writing such a book won’t fuel eating disorders. if an author’s not comfortable with that, they shouldn’t write about them.
Rebecca - I thought of “Go Ask Alice” when I read this, too.
Censoring the book will only raise it’s profile and turn it into a Bible for girls with eating disorders.
Not to go off on a tangent, but have you ever read, “The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health?” It changed my life. If you have issues with birth control, it’s the way to go (and even if you don’t). It’s so informative and pro-woman – don’t skip the introduction. The author is awesome. I have a copy floating around somewhere – I’ve lent it out to some of our mutual friends.
whitney - Teresa – Thanks for your kind words, as always. I’ll let you guys know more when I read Wintergirls.
Heather – Same thing with FLB. when I went back and reread Dangerous Angels, I was shocked at the eating issues. And it wasn’t just Weetzie, it was every girl character. Have you read Necklace of Kisses?
Becca – I’d love to see that book. I’ll put it on my Goodreads to-read list. Let me know if your copy comes back to you soon.
Miss K - I loved Wintergirls, but there are definitely some parts that made me think about how it could be thinspiration for young readers.
After a long break from FLB, I just read Necklace of Kisses and noticed that it talked a lot about what Weetzie ate, but didn’t think of it in an unhealthy way. Although I did look at the author photo (full body with hips jutting) and think that wasn’t appropriate for a YA book. I’m interested in this!
whitney - Miss K – Yes, I had the same experience with Necklace of Kisses. Enough with what Weetzie ate or didn’t eat!