History Literature / Wintergirls

* SelfServingMemory: In fifth grade, after Cassie got in trouble for beating up a bully named Thatcher who snapped her bra, the popular girls called her a "dyke lesbo" and threw her out of their clique. Lia stood up for Cassie by daring Thatcher to punch her, winning the respect of the other girls. After Lia was able to get them to let Cassie back in, they were happy to pretend the whole thing was all Thatcher’s fault.

* SelfServingMemory: In fifth grade, after Cassie got in trouble for beating up a bully named Thatcher who snapped her bra, the popular girls threw her out of their clique. Lia stood up for Cassie by daring Thatcher to punch her, winning the respect of the other girls. After Lia was able to get them to let Cassie back in, they were happy to pretend the whole thing had been entirely Thatcher’s fault.

* AgonyOfTheFeet: Lia wears a dress and high heels to Cassie's funeral, but the second she gets out of Elijah's car, she realizes she can't walk in them. At less than 100 pounds, her feet are probably more bone than flesh.

* AdvancedTech2000: In her head, Lia refers to the bathroom scale in her house as the "Blubber-O-Meter 3000".
* TheAloner: Lia. She has no social life whatsoever, no friends beyond her nine-year-old stepsister, and abuses her fragile medical history to sleep away sessions in the nurse's office or flunk school altogether whenever she can.

* DaintyLittleBalletDancers: Lia is a former ballet dancer who has always had a small, waifish figure even before her bout with anorexia.

** Cassie's father, a strict, unloving and authoritarian parent who treats his only daughter like a TrophyChild, never seems to be satisfied with her achievements, and is always berating her for not being perfect.

* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: Lia's mother cries in the shower after losing one of her patients, a social worker who took in foster kids. She had received a heart transplant, but it failed and the woman died before Dr. Marrigan and her doctors could do anything.

** David isn't there because he's at an early meeting, but his absence shows that he's not a great family man, especially during a time like this when his daughter's best friend has just been found dead.

-->We [me and Cassie] held hands when we walked down the gingerbread path into the forest, blood dripping from our fingers. We danced with witches and kissed monsters. We turned us into wintergirls, when she tried to leave, I pulled her back into the snow because I was afraid to be alone.

* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: Lia's mother cries in the shower after losing one of her patients, a social worker who took in foster kids. She received a heart transplant, but it failed and the woman died before Dr. Marrigan and her doctors could do anything.

** Cassie was a model student who actively participated in sports and theatre, described by the school superintendent in a newspaper as "what we all want our children to be - bright, hardworking, and kind." She also suffered from bulimia, alcoholism, self-esteem issues, and was always fighting with her parents, who had been pressuring her non-stop to be their perfect TrophyChild since her childhood. Until the moment of her death, she was pretending everything was fine at school, while feeling dead inside and hating herself for dumping her best friend Lia, but not being able to apologize to her until she was in the middle of a drinking binge. When Lia didn't answer after 33 calls, Cassie continued binging, purging, and drinking until her esophagus ruptured and she died alone on the bathroom floor of her motel room.

** Cassie was a model student who actively participated in sports and theatre, but suffered from bulimia, alcoholism, self-esteem issues, and was always fighting with her parents. Until the moment of her death, she was pretending everything was fine at school, while feeling dead inside and hating herself for dumping her best friend Lia, but not being able to apologize to her until she was in the middle of a drinking binge. When Lia didn't answer after 33 calls, Cassie continued binging, purging, and drinking until her esophagus ruptured and she died alone on the bathroom floor of her motel room.
** Really, the whole Parrish family has shades of this trope post-Cassie's death. They (or at least Cassie's parents) worked hard to be seen as pillars of the community, with Mr. Parrish working as an elementary school teacher, Mrs. Parrish being the ideal "PTA mom" who led Girl Scout troops, sewed costumes for the school play, and held book club and scrapbooking meetings, and as mentioned above, Cassie seemed like the perfect student. But behind closed doors, they had a fractured and troubled family life that ultimately resulted in their only daughter's awful death.
** Lia's mother Dr. Chloe Marrigan is a genius cardiologist and surgeon who "works miracles the other way people flip burgers" (in her daughter's words), but her family life isn't so great, either. In college, she had a ShotgunWedding to Lia's father and spent several years in a loveless marriage with him before finally getting a divorce. Her only daughter has a troubled relationship with her and doesn't even want to live with her. Currently, she lives alone and her house is covered in half-hearted attempts at redecoration. Her garden hasn't been taken care of in a long time and is covered in weeds and dead plants.

* ObsessedWithFood: Lia, though the usual spirit of the trope is inverted because she's obsessed with ''avoiding'' food rather than eating it. In her case, she's eating as little calories as she possibly can and constantly trying to force herself to stop thinking about being hungry all the time.

** Lia's mother Dr. Chloe Marrigan is a genius cardiologist and surgeon who "works miracles the other way people flip burgers" (in her daughter's words), but her family life isn't so great, either. In college, she had a ShotgunWedding to Lia's father and spent several years in a loveless marriage with him before finally getting a divorce. Her only daughter has a troubled relationship with her and doesn't even want to live with her. Currently, she lives alone and her house is covered in half-hearted attempts at redecoration.

** Lia's mother Dr. Chloe Marrigan is a genius cardiologist and surgeon, but her family life isn't so great, either. In college, she had a ShotgunWedding to Lia's father and spent several years in a loveless marriage with him before finally getting a divorce. Her only daughter has a troubled relationship with her and doesn't even want to live with her. Currently, she lives alone and her house is covered in half-hearted attempts at redecoration.

** Lia's mother Dr. Chloe Marrigan is a genius cardiologist and surgeon, but her family life isn't so great. In college, she had a ShotgunWedding to Lia's father and spent several years in a loveless marriage with him before finally getting a divorce. Her only daughter has a troubled relationship with her and doesn't even want to live with her. Currently, she lives alone and her house is covered in half-hearted attempts at redecoration.

** Really, the whole Parrish family has shades of this trope post-Cassie's death. They (or at least Cassie's parents) worked hard to be seen as pillars of the community, with Mr. Parrish working as an elementary school teacher, Mrs. Parrish being the ideal "PTA mom" who led Girl Scout troops, sewed costumes for the school play, and held book club and scrapbooking meetings, and as mentioned above, Cassie seemed like the perfect student. But they had a fractured and troubled family life that ultimately resulted in their only daughter's awful death.

* SlaveToPR: Jennifer is obsessed with maintaining her image of being a perfect wife, mother and accountant at the bank she works at, which extends to pushing her daughter Emma into various extracurricular activities. The novel opens with Jennifer crumbling the edges of the cookies she's taking to Emma's school so they'll look homemade instead of store-bought.

** Chloe isn't there either, but Lia comments that she prefers talking to her ex-husband David over the phone because face-to-face takes too much time and usually ends in screaming, implying an acrimonious divorce.