Review: Cut

Author: Patricia McCormick

Release Date: February 1, 2002 

Publisher: Push

Pages: 151

Source: Bought

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Summary:  "A tingle arced across my scalp. The floor tipped up at me and my body spiraled away. Then I was on the ceiling looking down, waiting to see what would happen next." 

Callie cuts herself. Never too deep, never enough to die. But enough to feel the pain. Enough to feel the scream inside. Now she's at Sea Pines, a "residential treatment facility" filled with girls struggling with problems of their own. Callie doesn't want to have anything to do with them. She doesn't want to have anything to do with anyone. She won't even speak. But Callie can only stay silent for so long...

My Favorite Lines:  

"Then I place the blade next to the skine on my palm.
A tingle arced across my scalp. The flood tipped up at me and my body spiraled away. Then I was on the ceiling looking down, waiting to see what would happen next. What happened next was thet a perfect, straight line of blood bloomed from under the blade.The line grow into a long, Fat bubbel, A lush crimson bubbel that got bigger and bigger. I watch from above, waiting to see how big it would get before it burst. when it did, I felt awesome. Satisfied, finally. Then exhausted."

Honestly, I'm not sure why I've felt the need lately to read such intense books. From Patterson murder mysteries to Ellen Hopkins to this fabulous book I'm about to tell you about, it's a wonder my brain isn't in intensity overload.

Callie made me fall in love with her in spite of her sick needs. Despite the horror of her self-inflicted mutilation, I could relate to her character and the many other girls that surrounded her. I saw myself in those young women. I saw my failures and insecurities and my need to escape blame.

I chose to reread this book mostly because I wanted to find out if it blowed my mind as much as it did in middle school.  It didn't.  In the defense of the book though, when I first read the book I had only been exposed to the tamer side of books that middle school typically offers.  Cut opened me up to find books about other things I didn't understand.  The book made me realize that there is so much more out there to read with whole new genres to discover.

McCormick is real. She never avoids tough subjects, and honestly she addresses issues that tend to be swept under the rug (especially in this East Texan environment) as if they don't exist.