Girl In Pieces

Reviewed by: Brooke Faulkner - McArthur Public Library, Biddeford, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: November 7, 2016

Review

Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis has been living on the street since her mother kicked her out, heartsick and desperate following the near death of her best friend Ellis, who like Charlie, cuts herself to cope with her experiences of dissociation. After Charlie's sexually assaulted and sustains serious injury while self-harming, she is transferred to a mental health program from the hospital.

This raw, moving, evocative novel is divided into three parts - the first about Charlie's experience with a group of other young women and a kind therapist at a treatment program in Minnesota; the second set in Tucson, where she winds up after her health insurance abruptly dries up, struggling mightily with her demons even as she falls for a much older guy who is an alcoholic and drug addict; the third detailing what happens when Blue, another discharged patient from the mental health facility arrives to stay with her in Arizona and her life takes another trajectory.

Charlie's a talented artist who is deeply sympathetic and her narrative voice is piercingly vulnerable and intelligent. Secondary characters are also painted with a detailed brush, which allows Charlie's confessional tone to expand outward, balancing against it feeling overly insular.

Not an easy read, but gripping, finely written, honest and ultimately hopeful, this is a title that will find an audience with older teens and young adults who like authors like Ellen Hopkins, Laurie Halse Anderson and Adam Rapp.

Overall Book Score: excellent