Girl in Pieces
Girl in Pieces, written by Kathleen Glasgow, is a heart wrenching novel about seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis. Charlie’s father drowned himself when she was a child and her mother wants nothing to do with her. Charlie ends up living on the street and knows how to survive there. These past traumas add to her already present self-loathing. She has three close friends: Mikey, Ellis, and DannyBoy. Charlie is very suicidal, and her choice of self-mutilation is cutting with shards of glass. When the story starts Charlie is in a psych ward. She ends up there after cutting herself while living on the street. She refuses to talk and learns her friend Ellis is pretty much dead after cutting too deep. When Charlie eventually leaves the ward, she decides to go to Tucson, Arizona, where Mikey is. She believes if she shows up there Mikey will love her like she has always wanted, even though he always had a sweet spot for Ellis. Charlie meets Mikey in Arizona and faces the rejection she was afraid of. While living in Tucson, Charlie gets a job at a café called True Grit and meets a semi famous rocker named Riley. She strikes up a romance with Riley, who is a few years older and a raging alcoholic. Not long after their relationship begins, Riley cheats on Charlie with another woman and they ransack Charlie’s apartment. This leads Charlie to relapse and start deep cutting again. Eventually Charlie starts to pull herself together and some of her psych ward “friends” come out to Tucson to see her and help her stay on her feet. At the end of the novel, Charlie meets Riley again at one of his concerts and he writes a song for her as an apology. Charlie silently forgives Riley and moves on in hopes of moving past that time in her life.
Kathleen Glasgow did not cut any corners when it came to writing this book. Even the cover is reflective of the story inside. Each of the words are written in what looks to be charcoal and are smudged as if someone was writing it and moved their hand. The dirty appearance of the writing could reflect that of Charlie who lived on the street and was considered “dirty”. The dirty cover could also suggest how Charlie feels about herself and being a cutter. Through each of the words there is a red gash that looks to be deep in the center. The gashes are representative of the self-inflicted cutting Charlie does with her shards of glass. The background of the book is a tan color that could represent Charlie’s outlook on life. Charlie believes her life isn’t worth living and is boring and never ending, like the color tan.
This book is a beautiful piece of work that illustrates the struggles of living with mental illness and the trials that come along with it. It also shows the scars that parents leave on their children and the lasting effects. For those struggling with cutting, the book could be triggering and probably shouldn’t be recommended. I believe that with the right audience this book can be well appreciated. I believe more people should read this book because it can help others to understand what it can be like to have a mental illness and to be around those suffering from it. It also shows the steps of recovery and the hope and pain associated with it.
Creative Minds 