Cut

Rating:
Summary: Cut
Review: This debut novel by Patricia McCormick confronts the readers with the direct title of the book: Cut. The cover of the book is a piece of text from page eleven which clearly indicates that the book deals with the mental illness of cutting. McCormick's purpose in writing this book is to inform people about this illness and to make us familiar with it. Both teenagers and adults should be informed with this serious contemporary problem. Many people are confronted with this issue, either in their family and friends, or they are experienceing it themselves. This book makes us able to understand people that deal with cutting or experience it their enviroment.The book clearly explains why someone would feel reliefed after they have cut themselves. Patricia McCormick is able to describe the character and the situations in much detail that the reader is able to visualize and understand the thoughts of this fifteen year old girl, Callie.
Callie was sent for help after her parents and docter discovered that she cuts herself. Callie who is the narrator of the story speaks as if she is talking to her counselor from Sea Pines, which is a treatment facility for young girls who each struggle with their own personal and unique problems. The system of counseling at Sea Pines is done in groups, where everyone talks about their experiences and feelings. However, Callie hates groups she thinks that "... people always end up saying things that make them look pathetic." Therefore, Callie never speaks in groups, neither to her therapist. She prefers watching silently. Yet, she feels frustrated that noone is able to help her with her problems. Everyday is a new day of counseling.The therapist puts a new date on the fresh page of his notebook. Nevertheless, at the end of the counseling, nothing is written on the page because Callie never reveals her mystery. If she would talk, people might proof that she is crazy. However, when Callie gets drawn into the group, she finds the courage the speak up and gradually she reveals the family trauma, of her brother's illness, which developed into her self-destructive behavior.
The author's style is informal, therefore it suits all audiences. If it would be written formaly, it would lose the quality of the narattor. The ideas of McCormick are richly developed and all areas are coverd, to make us understand the character.
It is fascinating how the character mentions every detail around her. She obserbes a fly that sits on a table and considers how she is the only person that cares about that fly. This could have a double meaning. For example, she is the only person that knows about her own problem, but nobody seems to care about it. Moreover, deep inside of her soul, Callie cries for attention.Yet people are not able to see her pain. On the other hand, when someone asks Callie why she hurts herself, she responds:"I don't know...It just happens. I can't help it."It is difficult to understand people who deal with these issues, therefore I would recommand anyone who is interessted on this topic to read Cut, because it will give you a clear view of how people like Callie feel, think and see things.I think this book will be a support and inspiration for people that deal with this mental illness.

Rating:
Summary: Cut
Review: "Then I placed the blade next to the skin on my palm. 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..." thinks teenage Callie as her therapist babbles on about how she became the "self mutilator" she is today. Callie lives in the Sea Pines residential treatment facility with 5 other girls with problems close to hers- eating disorders, drug addictions, and others. This novel is part psychological mystery story and part adolescent drama. The problem in this story can and does take place throughout the world.
This book was one of the best books I've ever read relating to this topic. It's very descriptive and teaches you what can happen if you get attached to something that harms you. I recommend this book to anyone who likes reading about people their own age that have the same problems.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and disturbing
Review: I loved this book, despite its bizarre content and subject matter. Having picked it up, not really fully understanding what it was all about, I wasn't prepared for what takes place.

But the author has a remarkable way of telling the story. This is definitely one of the most unusual books out there.

Also recommended: McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD

Rating:
Summary: Superficial treatment of a deep subject.
Review: I had expected more from this book when i bought it. After reading the summary on the back cover, i was hoping to read a serious novel that truly confronted the issue of self-injury (SI). Instead, i found the book to be lacking in depth and using SI as a gimmick to establish the lead character, Callie, in the setting of the book.
"Cut" is not a novel about the issue of cutting. It is a novel about a girl in an adolescent psychiatric ward. As written, the book is a very diluted version of "Girl, Interrupted," describing Callie's stay in the ward and some experiences with her therapist and with the other patients. With very little effort, this book could be rewritten as a story of a girl with an eating disorder or a substance abuse problem--the type of mental-health issue is unimportant to the plot.
If you are looking for a story about life in a psychiatric ward, written at a middle school level, this book is perfect and very readable. If, however, you are looking for a book for older teens or adults, or for a book specifically confronting the issue of self-injury, you will likely find "Cut" very disapppointing.

Rating:
Summary: A poignant story of grief and guilt
Review: Callie is living at Sea Pines (known to the guests as Sick Minds), a residential facility for people with mental health problems. Most of the girls have problems with food (too much or too little), or problems saying no to drugs. Callie is different though, she cuts herself and watches herself bleed. She never cuts too deep, but enough that she has ended up in the home. Callie silently watches events around her until one day Amanda arrives - Amanda cuts herself too. Somewhere inside Callies mind is the reason that she hurts herself - why does she do it?

Callie is a normal teenager who has had one too many problems to deal with in the normal way - so she withdraws within herself, refusing to speak and cutting herself. Told mainly as an internal monologue to a therapist Callie leads the reader to the heart of her problem in flitting imagery and moments that at first leave you somewhat confused - but which open out eventually to lead you inside her mind and the source of her pain.

This is not an easy book to read. If you like the style of this book then try reading "Speak" and "Georgie".

Rating:
Summary: Callie the Cutter
Review: In this novel, Callie is one of those people who cuts herself. She puts out all of her frustration from her life into her own body. She is then sent to a residential treatment facility. There are other girls there who have eating disorders and drug problems, but Callie is sent there because she cuts herself. At one point she just stops talking. She just wouldn't talk to anyone about anything. In this novel, Callie learns how to deal with the problems in her life and learns to communicate, since she's obviously having some trouble in that area of her life. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone matrure enough to read about this subject. You don't have to have the problems that the characters do to be able to identify with them and see how they live the way they do. The fact that all you hear from the main character for a while is only her thoughts and not her voice makes this book unique. Cut has a very good story.

Rating:
Summary: An intense read
Review: Recently I read the book Cut. The main character of Cut is a teenage girl named Callie. The plot of this book is sometimes happy, sometimes sad and sometimes just confusing.
In this book Callie cuts herself and goes to a treatment center called Sea Pines. Callie calls it Sick Minds. She doesn't speak for a long time until someone with the same problem comes to Sea Pines. Everyone is shocked when Callie speaks, once she starts speaking she finds out that she really likes the girls she lives with.
As I said before Callie cuts herself, never enough to die, just enough to feel the pain. Callie is most likely cutting herself because she is feeling angry or depressed.
I recommend this book to people that like realistic fiction that are in the seventh grade or older and aren't looking for a flowery book.
If I had to rate this book on a scale of one to five, I would give it a four out of ten because it could have been longer. It left me hanging a little bit.

Rating:
Summary: !!! Whatever !!!
Review: Let me give it to you straight. "Cut" by Patricia McCormick is NOT one of those books you are going to read over and over again. It is NOT one of those books that is going to keep you up at night. It is NOT one of those books that will send a self-injurer (SI) into a relapse [at least, it didn't send ME into one]. Though the book claims to be basically a melodrama where the main character, Callie, needs immediate help and to battle a big, bad monster, i.e. self-mutilation, this is not so in my eyes. Reading the book made me think that McCormick just wanted an excuse to write about some kid in a mental hospitol. This kid could be an anorexic, or a druggie, it didn't really matter. Maybe McCormick knows someone who cuts or possibly is a cutter herself: I wouldn't know, I haven't met the woman.

But what I DO know is that this was just like every other book about SI, such as "Saint Jude" and "The Luckiest Girl In The World", to name a few. These authors seem to be copying each other, big time. Not the words, but the major ideas. The number of SI in the United States is rapidly increasing. We realistically do not have the time or the facilities to take on a few million of them. What we need a book about is a kid coping with self-mutilation without a special treatment center or group home. I honestly think that McCormick must have thought, 'hmmmmmm, wouldn't it be fun if I made a girl go on a little field trip to a loony bin, and then let her struggle there?'

I am just wondering where these authors get their ideas!!! Half of these stories are really a load of bull. However, I think that Patricia McCormick may, in fact, have a knack for writing, that is just still a little underdeveloped. I can't be TOO hard on her: afterall, it WAS her first novel.

Rating:
Summary: I, a cutter....
Review: This book is real and in your face. It describes the feeling. The releif of a cut. The joy in the feeling it allows you for your split second. The addiction to it, and the withdrawl of it. I don't suggest this book if you still cut, or think of it. I had a relaps in reading it myself. This book was wonderfully written and perfectly described. It wasnt just a scientific analogy of what type of chemeical imbalnce in your brain bla bla bla. It was the feeling, the confusion of why. The triumpth of stopping. And the consequence of not. READ THIS BOOK. You'll be glad when you do. good day.

Rating:
Summary: A brilliant story of a girl who needs help
Review: Cut by Patricia McCormick was an excellent read. Stress. Piercing pain, slicing, stabbing. This is what callie feels,when everything around her starts to pile up, she decides to slit her wrists as a way of relieving the pain bottled up inside her. Her mother finds out and sends her to Sea Pines, a correctional facility. This book leads you through her route of self discovery there. You feel like you are there and you just want to help her but you can't, and you can almost hear Callie's voice trying to break through. It's happy but sad at the same time and this book helped me realize a lot of things about my own life. I think Mccmormick was trying to send a message to mainly teenage girls about the consequences of slitting or the hardships of self destruction. This book was written really well and it kept you guessing and hoping for more and it teaches you a great lesson so that is why I enjoyed it.