In time, it becomes clear that Cassie is waiting for Lia to cross over too. As the hauntings continue, however, Cassie begins to follow Lia around and even talk to her. Lia is sure that Cassie is haunting her because she refused to pick up the telephone that night.

At first, the ghost simply appears to Lia, letting her know that Cassie's spirit is still around and that she has unfinished business with Lia. In the days after Cassie's death, Lia is haunted by Cassie's ghost. Arguably, Emma is the only good thing going in Lia's life - she resents both her parents for forcing her into the hospital and refuses to have close relationships with them - but even her love for Emma cannot force Lia to eat. Lia's parents divorced when she was younger, and her father has remarried a nice woman named Jennifer with an eight-year-old daughter, Emma, whom Lia adores. This is clearly because Lia feels out of control emotionally. Everything in Lia's life is about controlling something, most often food and exercise. Her main goal in life now is to stay out of the mental hospital while hiding her rapid weight loss from her family.

Lia is anorexic, and has been sent to a rehabilitation/therapy center twice for hospitalization. Lia doesn't let on that she knows anything about Cassie's death because her entire life is about control. She runs up to her room and listens to the messages, each becoming increasingly more desperate, begging Lia for help, begging her to pick up the phone. Lia knows that the night before, Cassie called her 33 times, but Lia never answered. As the novel progresses, Lia spirals dangerously out of control and she must come to terms with her emotions if she wants to live.Īs the novel opens, Lia learns that her ex-best friend has been found dead in a motel room. Before she died, Cassie called Lia 33 times for help, but Lia never picked up the phone. All these emotions are heightened when Lia's best friend Cassie, a bulimic, dies in a motel room after a long session of bingeing and purging. Wintergirls is the story of eighteen-year-old Lia Overbrook, an anorexic cutter who loathes her body, her family, and her life.

Wintergirls novel