Cut

Rating:
Summary: This is the real stuff
Review: I've never felt as compelled to write about a book as I do with this one. As someone who used to self-inflict cuts and bruises as a coping mechanism, this book rang true. The description of the loneliness, fear, and confusion that Callie feels echoed thoughts I'd had when I was her age. Not only that, but the underlying feelings of all the girls at Sea Pines were like looking in a mirror.

Everyone that's ever felt depressed, alone, or confused by their own feelings should read this. McCormick does a beautiful job with a very tough and scary topic.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I am a eighth grader in a small middle school. I read this in about three days. The way the author writes her words make it easy to read and easy to imagine. This book shows how teens can go to extremes due to family, or any other problems. The main character "Callie" is a great example of how teens with health issues, can be portraied. The world in the book can be easily compared to the real world. A world with problems and insecurities that everyone faces. The author, shows detail in the way she writes. When she tells about the enviroment, and the emotions the girls in the book, it gives you a feeling inside, a feeling that you know what they're going through.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't even scratch the surface
Review: Although this isn't a boring story, if you are looking to discover more about the way the mind of a 'cutter' works or understand it any way this book will not help you. At no point does the book confront the inner workings of Callie's mind, it simply narrates the happenings of her life at 'sick minds' from a somewhat impartial point of view. In my opinion it didn't scratch the surface of this issue at all. If you are a stranger to the idea of self mutilation then you may find this book informative and interesting, but to someone familiar with the topic it comes accross as a story that glosses over what is really going on.

Rating:
Summary: I recomend it for older teens
Review: This book was very good in my opinion. It explains how a girl started an obsession of cutting herself.
The story is set in a rehab-like facility.
It gives you a glimpse of what it would be like to be in her shoes.
I like the way it was written because it keeps the reader involved in the story.
I think older teens would appreciate the story more. Also I would not find it to be appropriate for anybody under the age of 14 mostly because its a little graphic in nature.

Rating:
Summary: Too graphic for young children
Review: I don't know what I was expecting when I picked up "Cut", but I'm glad I didn't expect anything. This novel passes out many ideas of problems that could influence children and teens.

Rating:
Summary: Slow at first...but bloomed into a wonderful book
Review: This book has no age group. It's a good book for anyone. Makes us look at the other side of thing....to understand why people think they need to harm theirselves...

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed with content
Review: this book may be a good read for a young teen but i felt it was simplistic and superficial. As a mother of a self injurer, I was looking for some insite and understanding. There are books on the market with much deeper understanding and accuracy of the dynamics of this complicated and heart breaking phenomenon. It was an easy read and i read it in a couple of hours but it really only sctatches the surface

Rating:
Summary: It's "okay"
Review: Recovering from self-injury myself, I greatly know the struggles that you are faced with in inpatient treatment and in giving up this coping mechanisim. This book protrays self-injury in a way that the non self-injurer can understand and breaks some stigma, which I give it credit for. But it doesn't really "show" you what trully goes through a persons mind- a person who would actually hurt themselves for temporary relief. And although the protrayal of the residential treatment program DOES show some resembalence to most residential treatment programs, but not a lot. Normal residential treatment programs are unpleasent having just-out-of-college staff who don't know what they're doing and the extreme, almost sickening, structure of a treatment program. It also doesn't go into the normal parrels of quick revolving door inpatient treatments which USUALLY happen before someone goes to the extreme of a residential treatment facility. It also goes so much more into the graphics of self-injury instead of the EMOTIONS of self-injury. It's not a book I would recomend for someone in recovery, but I would recomend it to someone who does not have a history of psychiatric problems or self-injurious behavior.

Rating:
Summary: The most sensitive novel about self-injury that I've seen!
Review: In this young adult novel about self-injury, fifteen-year-old Callie is sent to a residential treatment facility after her cutting habit is discovered by the school nurse. Although Callie's reasons for cutting herself are not revealed until the end of the story, the reader is quickly drawn into Callie's troubled world through a first-person narrative that is both gripping and sensitive.

When Callie first enters the Sea Pines treatment home, she is not only vulnerable and apprehensive but also mute. The emotions that plague her are so overwhelming that she does not even trust herself to voice them. Though the girls around her also have troubles, Callie is fearful of opening up to anyone. She is embarrassed to have a disorder that she thinks no one understands, but what's more is that she feels immense guilt for a crime whose fault she believes is her own.

What is remarkable about this novel is the authenticity of Callie's voice. Author Patricia McCormick creates a character whose sensitivity and compassion are quickly apparent to the reader, but in whose own self-image these traits are absent. To cope with the guilt and self-loathing she feels, Callie inflicts small cuts on herself. The physical pain brings her relief in that it draws her mind away from the mental anguish she cannot explain.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is dealing with emotional problems, especially self-injury. However, Callie is such an engaging character that anyone who has suffered through a moment of insecurity will likely become engrossed in her story. And considering that self-mutilation is becoming an increasingly common phenomenon, especially among adolescent girls, I think we owe it to Callie and to those like her to become aware of this topic. "Cut," in its tender and deft portrait of self-injury victims, is the novel with which to begin.

Rating:
Summary: All Too Real
Review: I read this book because I have had a friend who cuts herself. I realized what kind of thoughts she was going through and I knew what she was thinking. It really scared me in some parts but in others I was glad I knew that kind of information. This book is really good in how it can take something like a year into a very short book. The only thing I would have changed was the length of the book. It could have easily been longer. But I have to hand it to her. The thoughts that the character had are oh so true.