Powerful Idea Of Self-Harm In Cuts By Patricia Mccormick

The book Cuts by Patricia McCormick is a book that has a powerful idea, the idea of a protagonist recovering from self-harm. Cuts started out with so much potential. Callie comes across as a character that many high schoolers can relate to. She is a runner, a perfectionist, struggles with a sibling that takes all her parent’s attention, and has social anxiety. In the beginning of the book I was rooting for Callie. I saw a struggling girl who was trying to come to terms with who she was, and I could relate. Unfortunately, as the book progressed, I lost interest in the character. Honestly Callie could hardly be called a character at all. She was given about as much personality as a sheet of paper. And Callie wasn’t the only character who disappointed me. In the book are so many young teen girls who suffer from very real issues. There are characters with Anorexia, Substance abuse, Binge eating disorders, and more that could have been explored and healed to make a powerful novel. Instead

To me that lack of experience was very apparent. The scenes that described the act of cutting seemed superficial. Callie’s thoughts while cutting where mainly of how good it felt. There was no exploration of the mental burdens it caused or what really pushed her to this in the first place. Cuts by Patricia McCormick really could have been a powerful book that pushed teens to seek help. Instead it became a shallow mockery of the real struggles and burdens that many teens face. Anyone who has not faced these struggle would have a warped perspective of them after reading this book. I would consider it an almost dangerous book due to the almost constant message that self-harm isn’t bad, that it actually feels great and is good stress relief. The only positive take away from this book is how it consistently states that help is out there if you look for