Rating: 5*
CW/TW: self-harm, drug abuse, alcoholism
First off, this book was hard to read. This book was raw; it was real. It was the unflinching truth about self-destruction, self-harm, and the darkest, ugliest sides of ourselves when we face it. However, it wasn't all dark. GIRL IN PIECES celebrates your thing. That bubbling passion in someone struggling, that very thing that anchors them in the dark, how everything comes out. If you can't talk, you do that.
First off, this book was hard to read. This book was raw; it was real. It was the unflinching truth about self-destruction, self-harm, and the darkest, ugliest sides of ourselves when we face it. However, it wasn't all dark. GIRL IN PIECES celebrates your thing. That bubbling passion in someone struggling, that very thing that anchors them in the dark, how everything comes out. If you can't talk, you do that.
After Charlie becomes homeless, attacked, and loses her best friend, she tries to kill herself by going just that little bit deeper. She fails and her friends from the street drop her off at a hospital to be cared for. In a psychiatric hospital, Charlie finds her people: the cutters, the burners, the pinners. Everyone with skin likes hers, she finds them. She finds solace in them. She finds hope and recovery and a voice with them. Once discharged after several weeks, she moves to another part of the country with the help of her friend, Mikey. There, she starts finding a new life, a better way of living, coping, and looking after herself. Yet starting a new job brings a different start to Charlie: a start that she's well-acquainted with. Meeting Riley sends Charlie into another dark spiral. Together, they navigate bad coping mechanisms, drugs, alcohol, and when Charlie starts to fall in love with him--and, I believe, Riley loved her as well, in some way he was capable--disaster starts. He gets her to do drug runs, she lets him get away with being constantly high or drunk, to a destructive point. Reading about their relationship had my chest tight and tears streaming. I hurt for Charlie, I felt for Riley, I was angry at and addicted to the whole dynamic. When that blows up in Charlie's face and she attempts suicide again, she's saved by people she never thought were looking out for her.
Reading this book made me feel seen. GIRL IN PIECES took my hand, saw the deepest, ugliest parts of myself that made me feel ashamed to confess and said, "It's okay. I see you, I see your hurt, your ways. Be you. Find who you are." In the story, Charlie falls into art. She vents through art, lets out every bad thought, feeling, urge. The author encourages the reader to find their thing. Their passion, their vent. The way I see it is like this: you're standing at a crossroads, at the edge of another urge/breakdown/episode, and you see two signs; one directs to self-harm, the other directs to your passion. The self-harm way might make you feel better but it's destructive, temporary. Now, the passion one is honest, emotional, and is what might drain that bad feeling bit by bit. Kathleen Glasgow has given me a particular gift with this book: as a writer, I don't want to be afraid to write the hard things anymore. I've started writing a new manuscript based off so many feelings I've never felt able to get out. GIRL IN PIECES has given me the gift of acceptance: not everything is rosy and shiny and so why should my passion be? Sometimes YA has a way of romanticising mental health to make a story out of it; this isn't the case with this story. It shows the ugly side most authors can't write about. As someone who has gone through self-harm over and over, got addicted to it, to a point where just going half an hour without hurting myself was an achievement, I needed this story. I needed to know there were others like there who hurt like me and who didn't try to make it into a fancy Tumblr post. At the end of the book, the author leaves a note with self-harm statistics and it made me feel a little less alone, even though I've never had the opportunity to fully talk to others in length about this.
So thank you, Kathleen Glasgow, for writing this book. Thank you for introducing Charlie to the world so I can read her story and know that there is always hope, even when you can't find it right in front of you.
Reading this book made me feel seen. GIRL IN PIECES took my hand, saw the deepest, ugliest parts of myself that made me feel ashamed to confess and said, "It's okay. I see you, I see your hurt, your ways. Be you. Find who you are." In the story, Charlie falls into art. She vents through art, lets out every bad thought, feeling, urge. The author encourages the reader to find their thing. Their passion, their vent. The way I see it is like this: you're standing at a crossroads, at the edge of another urge/breakdown/episode, and you see two signs; one directs to self-harm, the other directs to your passion. The self-harm way might make you feel better but it's destructive, temporary. Now, the passion one is honest, emotional, and is what might drain that bad feeling bit by bit. Kathleen Glasgow has given me a particular gift with this book: as a writer, I don't want to be afraid to write the hard things anymore. I've started writing a new manuscript based off so many feelings I've never felt able to get out. GIRL IN PIECES has given me the gift of acceptance: not everything is rosy and shiny and so why should my passion be? Sometimes YA has a way of romanticising mental health to make a story out of it; this isn't the case with this story. It shows the ugly side most authors can't write about. As someone who has gone through self-harm over and over, got addicted to it, to a point where just going half an hour without hurting myself was an achievement, I needed this story. I needed to know there were others like there who hurt like me and who didn't try to make it into a fancy Tumblr post. At the end of the book, the author leaves a note with self-harm statistics and it made me feel a little less alone, even though I've never had the opportunity to fully talk to others in length about this.
So thank you, Kathleen Glasgow, for writing this book. Thank you for introducing Charlie to the world so I can read her story and know that there is always hope, even when you can't find it right in front of you.
No comments:
Post a Comment