Girl in Pieces

by Kathleen Glasgow

Overview

Fans of Girl, Interrupted, Thirteen Reasons Why, and All the Bright Places will love the New York Times bestselling novel Girl in Pieces.

"A haunting, beautiful, and necessary book that will stay with you long after you've read the last page."—Nicola Yoon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything
 
   Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At seventeen she’s already lost more than most people do in a lifetime. But she’s learned how to forget. The broken glass washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don’t have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you.
   Every new scar hardens Charlie’s heart just a little more, yet it still hurts so much. It hurts enough to not care anymore, which is sometimes what has to happen before you can find your way back from the edge.
  A deeply moving portrait of a girl in a world that owes her nothing, and has taken so much, and the journey she undergoes to put herself back together. Kathleen Glasgow's debut is heartbreakingly real and unflinchingly honest. It’s a story you won’t be able to look away from.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101934715
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	08/30/2016
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	262,031
Product dimensions:	5.81(w) x 8.56(h) x 1.35(d)
Lexile:	HL740L (what's this?)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Kathleen Glasgow's debut novel is the New York Times bestseller Girl in Pieces. She lives and writes in Tucson, Arizona. To learn more about Kathleen and her writing go to her website, kathleenglasgowbooks.com, follow @kathglasgow on Twitter, or find @misskathleenglasgow on Instagram.

Read an Excerpt

 
ONE

***

I can never win with this body I live in.
—Belly, “Star”

 
***
 
 
LIKE A BABY HARP SEAL, I’M ALL WHITE. MY FOREARMS are thickly bandaged, heavy as clubs. My thighs are wrapped tightly, too; white gauze peeks out from the shorts Nurse Ava pulled from the lost and found box behind the nurses’ station.
    Like an orphan, I came here with no clothes. Like an orphan, I was wrapped in a bedsheet and left on the lawn of Regions Hospital in the freezing sleet and snow, blood seeping through the flowered sheet.
    The security guard who found me was bathed in menthol cigarettes and the flat stink of machine coffee. There was a curly forest of white hair inside his nostrils.
    He said, “Holy Mother of God, girl, what’s been done to you?”
    My mother didn’t come to claim me.
    But: I remember the stars that night. They were like salt against the sky, like someone spilled the shaker against very dark cloth.
    That mattered to me, their accidental beauty. The last thing I thought I might see before I died on the cold, wet grass.

 
***
 
 
THE GIRLS HERE, THEY TRY TO GET ME TO TALK. They want to know What’s your story, morning glory? Tell me your tale, snail. I hear their stories every day in Group, at lunch, in Crafts, at breakfast, at dinner, on and on. These words that spill from them, black memories, they can’t stop. Their stories are eating them alive, turning them inside out. They cannot stop talking.
    I cut all my words out. My heart was too full of them.

 
***
 
 
I ROOM WITH LOUISA. LOUISA IS OLDER AND HER HAIR IS like a red-and-gold noisy ocean down her back. There’s so much of it, she can’t even keep it in with braids or buns or scrunchies. Her hair smells like strawberries; she smells better than any girl I’ve ever known. I could breathe her in forever.
   My first night here, when she lifted her blouse to change for bed, in the moment before that crazy hair fell over her body like a protective cape, I saw them, all of them, and I sucked my breath in hard.
   She said, “Don’t be scared, little one.”
   I wasn’t scared. I’d just never seen a girl with skin like mine.

 
***
 
EVERY MOMENT IS SPOKEN FOR. WE ARE UP AT SIX o’clock. We are drinking lukewarm coffee or watered-down juice by six forty-five. We have thirty minutes to scrape cream cheese on cardboardy bagels, or shove pale eggs in our mouths, or swallow lumpy oatmeal. At seven fifteen we can shower in our rooms. There are no doors on our showers and I don’t know what the bathroom mirrors are, but they’re not glass, and your face looks cloudy and lost when you brush your teeth or comb your hair. If you want to shave your legs, a nurse or an orderly has to be present, but no one wants that, and so our legs are like hairy-boy legs. By eight-thirty we’re in Group and that’s when the stories spill, and the tears spill, and some girls yell and some girls groan, but I just sit, sit, and that awful older girl, Blue, with the bad teeth, every day, she says, Will you talk today, Silent Sue? I’d like to hear from Silent Sue today, wouldn’t you, Casper?
    Casper tells her to knock it off. Casper tells us to breathe, to make accordions by spreading our arms way, way out, and then pushing in, in, in, and then pulling out, out, out, and don’t we feel better when we just breathe? Meds come after Group, then Quiet, then lunch, then Crafts, then Individual, which is when you sit with your doctor and cry some more, and then at five o’clock there’s dinner, which is more not-hot food, and more Blue: Do you like macaroni and cheese, Silent Sue? When you getting those bandages off, Sue? And then Entertainment.
After Entertainment, there is Phone Call, and more crying.
And then it’s nine p.m. and more meds and then it’s bed. The girls piss and hiss about the schedule, the food, Group, the meds, everything, but I don’t care. There’s food, and a bed, and it’s warm, and I am inside, and I am safe.
    My name is not Sue.
***
 
JEN S. IS A NICKER: SHORT, TWIGLIKE SCARS RUN UP AND down her arms and legs. She wears shiny athletic shorts; she’s taller than anyone, except Doc Dooley. She dribbles an invisible basketball up and down the beige hallway. She shoots at an invisible hoop. Francie is a human pincushion. She pokes her skin with knitting needles, sticks, pins, whatever she can find. She has angry eyes and she spits on the floor. Sasha is a fat girl full of water: she cries in Group, she cries at meals, she cries in her room. She’ll never be drained. She’s a plain cutter: faint red lines crosshatch her arms. She doesn’t go deep. Isis is a burner. Scabby, circular mounds dot her arms. There was something in Group about rope and boy cousins and a basement but I shut myself off for that; I turned up my inside music. Blue is a fancy bird with her pain; she has a little bit of everything: bad daddy, meth teeth, cigarette burns, razor slashes. Linda/Katie/Cuddles wears grandma housedresses. Her slippers are stinky. There are too many of her to keep track of; her scars are all on the inside, along with her people. I don’t know why she’s with us, but she is. She smears mashed potato on her face at dinner. Sometimes she vomits for no reason. Even when she is completely still, you know there is a lot happening inside her body, and that it’s not good.
    I knew people like her on the outside; I stay away from her.

Editorial Reviews

06/06/2016
Nearly broken by a suicide attempt and a spate of personal losses, 17-year-old Charlotte “Charlie” Davis finds solace in the broken shards of a mason jar and, later, through art, in debut author Glasgow’s visceral novel of self-harm. On the streets of the Twin Cities after her father died and her mother simply stopped caring, Charlie “cut all her words out heart was too full of them.” Bandaged and silent, she ends up in a psych unit for self-harmers. Although Charlie sees herself in the other girls, it’s her friend Ellis she craves the most. But the Ellis she knew is gone, stuck in the limbo of cutting deep enough to cause significant blood loss but not enough to die. When Charlie is discharged abruptly, she leaves for Tucson, following Mikey, a boy she liked but who always loved Ellis more. Glasgow skillfully juggles multiple difficult topics (homelessness, self-harm, etc.) without dipping into melodrama. Charlie’s intimate first-person narration places readers deep within her experience while maintaining awareness of the outside world and the people in it. Ages 14–up. Agent: Julie Stevenson, Waxman Leavell Literary. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Charlie is a girl in pieces, physically, emotionally, and socially. In hard-bitten language, she reveals the story behind her self-mutilation. Her father drowned himself. Her mother beat her. Her best friend tried cutting and bled out to the point of brain damage. She lived on the streets. For now, she is Silent Sue, then Strange Girl at rehab—not talking, not sleeping, just starting to work out her problems. Then, the insurance runs out. Her mother lies to the staff to get Charlie out, but she is not really letting Charlie come home. Instead, Charlie is headed to Arizona, where she is supposed to build a new life with help from a friend whom she hopes might become more than that. Charlie’s saving graces are her ability to lose herself in her art and a series of people who care enough to keep her alive. Glasgow draws each of these characters deftly with sparse details and vivid language. With their help, Charlie finds work as a dishwasher, gets a room, survives an unhealthy relationship with the boss’s manipulative brother, and endures one more skirmish with a piece of glass. At first blush, the topic and length of the book might be off-putting, but teens with the courage to crack the cover will find themselves driven to see Charlie’s story through. They will better understand a world that often makes no sense to outsiders. Glasgow’s debut novel is a dark read, but the engaging writing will win an audience for her next one. Reviewer: Donna L Phillips; Ages 15 to 18.

VOYA, August 2016 (Vol. 39, No. 3) - Donna L Phillips

06/01/2016
Gr 10 Up—The story begins with 17-year-old Charlie in a mental health facility that specializes in the treatment of girls who have self-injury disorders. When Charlie is released prematurely because of a lack of insurance coverage, she must find her own way in a world she is unprepared to deal with. Readers follow her as she struggles to meet the challenges of survival and as she follows the path of least resistance. As her story unfolds, teens will discover that a lot of horrible things have happened to Charlie, including losing her best friend, father, and mother—all in different ways. She is a cutter, but she's also a lot of other things, too: artist, survivor, scammer, and waif. She's in such a deep, dark place, and it seems impossible she'll ever get out of it. This realistic fiction title is heartbreaking and thick with emotion, and the characters are fully formed and realistic. The book is written in short chapters and can feel a little choppy at times, but the narrative still captivates. It will keep young adults engaged and rooting for the main character throughout. VERDICT Purchase for avid fans of Jennifer Niven's All the Bright Places or Susanna Kaysen's Girl Interrupted.—Danielle Fabrizio, Swanton Public Library, VT

School Library Journal

2016-05-04
After surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself.Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself; her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out; her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply; and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her—who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves—Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she "like-likes" but who had pined for Ellis instead. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a "semifamous" local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way "girls who write their pain on their bodies" scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together.This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression. (author's note) (Fiction. 14 & up)

Kirkus Reviews

A New York Times Bestseller
An Amelia Bloomer Project Award Selection
A New York Public Library Best Book for Teens, 2016

"A haunting, beautiful, and necessary book that will stay with you long after you've read the last page." —Nicola Yoon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything

"Equal parts keen-eyed empathy, stark candor, and terrible beauty. This book is why we read stories: to experience what it's like to survive the unsurvivable; to find light in the darkest night."-Jeff Zentner, author of The Serpent King

"Raw, visceral, and starkly beautiful, with writing that is at times transcendent in its brilliance. . . . An unforgettable story of trauma and resilience."—Kerry Kletter, author of The First Time She Drowned

"A breathtakingly written book about pain and hard-won healing . . . I want every girl to read Girl In Pieces."-Kara Thomas, author of The Darkest Corners

“A Girl, Interrupted for a new generation….The story of the mad girl is ultimately a story about being a girl in a mad world, how it breaks us into pieces and how we glue ourselves back together."—Melissa Febos, author of Whip Smart and Abandon Me 

"Girl In Pieces is like the friend you wish you had by your side for every hard choice and every time you've felt lost or alone. It's fearless and uncompromising, but overflowing with heart and wisdom."—Anthony Breznican, author of Brutal Youth.
 
“Dark, frank, and tender, Girl in Pieces keeps the reader electrified for its entire journey. You’re so uncertain if Charlie will heal, so fully immersed in hoping she does.”—Michelle Wildgen, author of Bread and Butter and You’re Not You

"Girl in Pieces has the breath of life; every character in it is fully alive. Charlie Davis' complexities are drawn with great understanding and subtlety."-Charles Baxter, author of National Book Award finalist The Feast of Love

"Charlie Davis has been damaged and abused after several years of living on the streets, but she is fiercely resilient.  Though it will appeal to readers of Ellen Foster, Speak, and Girl, Interrupted, Girl in Pieces is an entirely original work, compulsively readable and deeply human."-Julie Schumacher, author the New York Times bestseller Dear Committee Members

"In this sharp and beautiful portrait of eighteen-year-old Charlie Davis, Kathleen Glasgow illuminates not only the anxiety of youth but the vulnerability and terror of life in general. What a shock it is to engage with such a sensitive, sad, rage-filled soul: Glasgow's rendering of experience and emotion is so succinct and honest that I kept catching my breath in recognition, and admiration for her sensibility and empathy which glows on every page. Girl in Pieces hurts my heart in the best way possible."-Amanda Coplin, author of the New York Times bestseller The Orchadist

"Charlie Davis' voice is diamond-beautiful and diamond-sharp which, when strung together by a delicious story and memorable characters, creates a rare and powerful read. Kathleen Glasgow's Girl in Pieces is a treasure of a novel."-Swati Avasthi, author of Split and Chasing Shadows

"Written with wit and authenticity, Girl in Pieces is an extraordinary coming-of-age story, an unsentimental and affecting tale of a girl who almost doesn't make it to adulthood. Glasgow has a terrific ear for dialogue and an enviable gift for creating vivid characters, and her narrator—eighteen-year-old Charlie Davis—brings a backstreet eloquence to bear on a wrenching subject. Wise, unflinching, and balm for the kind of heartbreak that can't ever be fully mended, Girl in Pieces is a very, very good novel."-Summer Wood, author of Arroyo and Raising Wrecker

★ "In Glasgow’s riveting debut novel, readers are pulled close to Charlie’s raw, authentic emotions as she strains to make a jagged path through her new life. Love and trust prove difficult, and Charlie’s judgment is not well honed, but her will to survive is glorious."—Booklist, Starred review

★ "[Readers] will find themselves driven to see Charlie’s story through. They will better understand a world that often makes no sense to outsiders. Glasgow’s debut novel is a dark read, but the engaging writing will win an audience for [Glasgow]."-VOYA, Starred review

"Heartbreaking and thick with emotion,...[Girl in Pieces is] for avid fans of Jennifer Niven’s All the Bright Places or Susanna Kaysen’s Girl Interrupted."-SLJ

From the Publisher