Skin Game : A Memoir

Rating:
Summary: This one actually makes sense
Review: I found this book to be extremely helpful in helping me to be more at ease with my own SIV. I have never gone through any severe trauma and yet my SIV is considered "severe" or at least more than the norm. Most books concentrate on the past traumaic events that have lead a person to begin SIV. Skin Game is a wonderfully written book, that is an easy read. It focuses on the feelings of frustration and helplessness and the auther explains over and over that she cannot understand why she is a victim of SIV. I found this book extremely helpful, not in terms of self help, but in terms of gaining a bit of self worth back.

Rating:
Summary: Umm...
Review: I myself am a recovering cutter so I thought it would be nice to read something about someone else who cut. Well, I couldn't even get past the first few pages. The book seemed way too boring for me.

Rating:
Summary: Makes so much sense.......
Review: I thought this book was great. I loved it and couldn't put it down. Some of the things she said in this book reminded me so much of myself. It's always been hard to explain to my friends how I really feel inside and why. This book helped a lot. I read some of it to them and I think, and hope, that they understand me better. I know I understand myself better.

Rating:
Summary: A little disappointing
Review: I wanted to know the mind of a cutter. The conficts. What was going through her mind when she was cutting, how she covered it up so long, her struggles with therapy....I wanted to know about her emotional struggles. The book seemed to start out how I expected, but soon it seemed like I was just reading about the event free life of a girl. It felt like the author was trying so hard to illustrate that a trauma free life can lead to cutting that she made her life as boring as possible. Also it felt like she was more in love with her own words (although I did like some of them) then with exposing herself. I felt like her true emotions were hidden somewhere between the words and I finished the book wondering what I had missed.

Rating:
Summary: Highly Disappointing
Review: I was extremely hopeful when I bought this book that it would be a useful book for people, like me, who cut themselves. I've been cutting since I was 15. I am now 26. I haven't cut in7 months which I consider a personal victory. However, this book offerede me nothing. No insights on cutting, no insights on any way of getting help, nothing. In fact, the only reason I gave this book 2 stars is because it is the first memoir on cutting I've read. And it reads like it was rushed to press. I couldn't identify with the author at all. She alienates her primary audience with such ease, it's amazing she knew who she was writing this book for at all. I have yet to read a good book on cutting that I could identify with and I've read them all: Cutting, A Bright Red Scream, and Bodily Harm. Don't bother with this book. A website like Secret Shame or a chat room is a better bet.

Rating:
Summary: the book opened my eyes
Review: i'm an 11th grade student reading "skin game" for a psychology project at school. I found the subject of self-mutilation intriguing, thats why I picked the book and I was indeed intrigued. Caroline Kettlewell's writing style draws you in, it feels almost like you're talking to her face to face. The issues in the book that Caroline is faced with, are things that I have also felt. I can understand what drove her to begin "cutting" and can relate to her thoughts and moods. I think that's why I enjoyed reading this book so much. I've always though of "self mutilation" as something crude, messy, and the person doing the cutting as psychotic. However reading this book really changed my view point, and I can see that anyone can be affected by it. I reccommend to all, especially teenage girls who can probably identify with some of the problems Caroline faced - like I did.

Rating:
Summary: unrealistic view of recovery
Review: In reading this book, I was hoping to read about someone's recovery struggle. How they got better, the steps they took to heal. Instead I read a glorified account of someone hurting themself. The book is not about her recovery, it is all about acts of self-harm that get her to the point where she says "oh, I will stop now." In real life, people don't just stop from this behavior. Its a painful addiction tied to painful emotions that need to be dealt with. This book was a trite way of saying "look at me!"

Rating:
Summary: Validate Me, Validate Me
Review: In the era of group therapy, this book holds its own, except in this session, no one else gets a turn to share. This book is a testament to the adolescent, self-involvement which the author has yet to grow out of. For 178 pages, Kettlewell repeats, wanders, and over-emphasizes, pleading: "Please take me seriously, I have more to share." I find it hard to believe- as the author stresses -that she did not self-mutilate for attention, since now she screams for attention. Only now, she calls this attention with the pen instead of the razor. Furthermore, the book seems to read in stream of consciousness. I would think that a person with a master's degree in writing could manage to stay focused on one subject at a time. More importantly, Kettlewell never explains why she cut herself. She claims that it made her feel better - but why? Why did it make her feel better? Does physical pain block out emotional pain? Was her preoccupation with self-mutilation simply a distraction from concentrating on adolescent woes? For this reason, this book is completely ineffective in its attempt to help other cutters. This is simply Kettlewell's never-ending therapy session committed to paper. For some, its just all about 'me.'

Rating:
Summary: An Overall Good Book
Review: It took me quite a while to read this book. The details of her growning up did get a little boring. Once you get to the middle of the book you start to be able to realize the underlying causes for her self-injury. That is when it really gets interesting. I would definately recommend this book. It's not great for learning how to stop self-injury, but I find it very interesting to read another person's account.

Rating:
Summary: A verbalization of hard to explain feelings
Review: It's actually quite funny how I came across this book. I was at the Goodwill looking for old records and this book just happened to catch my boyfriends eye and he showed it to me. I bought it that day for $2. I read it the next night, I read it all that night. Caroline Kettlewell was able to explain her feelings, something I have never been able to do when it comes to depression, eating disorders and self-mutilation. My boyfriend has often asked me to explain how I feel but I haven't been able to find the words. Caroline Kettlewell found the words. She takes a mysterious and often mis-judged topic and gives it humanity. She sheds light on the lives of self-mutilators- they are not crazy people. There is such a stigma attached to depression, eating disorders, self-mutilation etc., "Skin Game" helps clear those stereotypes away by introducing you to a young girl with a otherwise healthy lifestyle and shows you what happens. EVERYONE should read this book.