Kristene W. (kmwelli) reviewed on 6/19/2010 + 31 more book reviews

This book is a great choice for those who enjoy psychological themes. The main character's experience is very real and pretty well researched. The main character narrates the book while she refers to the reader("you") as the therapist. While most of the story is well researched, there is a bit of a fairy-tale ending that doesn't happen so easily for most people. It is a positive ending as she wants to stop hurting herself, but the ending also makes it sound like that because she's decided to get better, she will get better easily. In real-life, she would still struggle greatly even with her desire to "get better." The residential facility wasn't as realistic as it could have been as most residential facilities don't allow patients to ever freely roam the facility at any level, and every thing is behind closed and locked doors (I suppose it depends on the time period this story was supposed to take place in, which really isn't clear). I have heard concerns from parents that this book is a bad influence on adolescents. As an adolescent counselor, I do not think it is a bad influence at all on healthy teens. I think healthy teens would find it to be a fast-paced, fasinating story that is based on real life for many teens who struggle with cutting. However, if you're a teen who does struggle with cutting, it could be both a positive and negative influence. It's a really great book for adolescent counselors to read with their clients who cut since it does have a positive ending that offers a sense of hope. The book is mostly well-done and written to catch the reader's attention.

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