Cut
03 Jul 2009 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: cutting, Keepin' It Real, realistic fiction, self-mutilation
Cut by Patricia McCormick
Published by PUSH, New York, NY 2000.
160 pages
Recommended reading age: 13 and up
VOYA Rating: 4P 4Q
Cut is a short and rather quick fiction read for teens that depicts a young teen battling her depression and frustrations through self-mutilation. The story follows 15-year old Callie as she silences her demons by finding her voice and opening up about her depression to her family and counselors.
Callie is a cutter and she cuts because of her depression. A lot of Callie’s stress and worry stems from the fact that there is a lot of emotional turmoil going on in her family life. Callie was a runner who enjoyed being a part of the cross-country team until her family life starts to take over. You see Callie has a younger brother whom she loves but he is very sick with allergy related sickness that manifests itself into asthma-like symptoms. His sickness causes his parents to be extremely over-protective of him and sometimes Callie goes unnoticed. The story opens with Callie running away from a meet that she is failing at miserably. Rather than being able to escape, and deal with her stress through running, she feels trapped. Missing the high from her usual source of release, Callie returns home for the first time and sees a knife in the kitchen. Feeling pent up and frustrated the author describes in detail the thoughts that are going through Callie’s head as she cuts for the first time. It is a very poignant and introspective look into Callie’s head and the reader can feel extremely close to her during this intimate moment. It really grabs you into gaining a better understanding as to what goes through a person’s head when they cut.
Eventually Callie winds up in Sea Pines (which all the “guests” refer to as “Sick Minds”) which is a recovery facility for other teens dealing with various ailments including substance abuse addictions and eating disorders. Callie refuses to speak to any body in her group and individual therapy sessions. Slowly things start to happen to Callie. She starts to feel something for her fellow “guests” at Sick Minds. She starts to care about them. She starts to speak and open up about her brother and reveals that she has always blamed herself for an incident that involved her brother being rushed to the hospital. Since her brother’s illness has strained their parents’ marriage Callie feels doubly responsible. Eventually, with her counselor and her friends at her recovery facility, she is able to start talking about her problems and begins the healing process.
I felt this was very similar to “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson and uses the very literal metaphor of speech (or lack of) to represent to her lost voice and isolation. The main character spends the whole life of the story in Sick Minds but uses flashbacks to illustrate what has happened prior to her entrance there. It deals with a very serious subject that many teens with deal. Even if a teen can’t relate to Callie’s self-mutilation they can relate to her other problems because they are all realistic and representative of family issues that teens face every day. The dialog between the other characters in the story and how slowly Callie opened up more and more. As a reader, you are really rooting for her by the end of the book. You are left, hopeful, that she is on the road to recovery. It offers an outlet for those teens who are cutters to find a representation of their pain while guiding them with an overall positive message to seek help. On the other hand for teens unfamiliar with the affliction of self-mutilation this story offers a window into that mindset and brings a very serious and secretive issue to the forefront.
