Kathleen Glasgow's Girl In Pieces

The book is titled Girl in Pieces, by Kathleen Glasgow. The reason that I chose this book was that I thought I would understand the characters. The description was that it was about a depressed, lost, confused girl trying to get by. I thought I could relate to the her.

The book, Girl in Pieces, is about Charlie Davis, a seventeen year old girl who thinks she has little reason to live. Her father killed himself, and her mother was abusive and kicked her out on the streets, where she was sexually abused and sold for sex. She was in the self harm department of a psychiatric hospital for a long time. She was eventually released to go back and live with her mother, but instead, she up and moved to Arizona. There, she tried to turn her life around.

She got a job, and apartment, and was trying to pursue her art. She slowly gained her sense of self worth and found her happiness. She becomes whole, she is no longer a girl in pieces.
I would rate this book as a 6/10.

I enjoyed reading and being taken through Charlie's story, and it was a good story. But, I did not like how random the story was. There were very big plot twists and the story drastically changed a couple times.

The main character in this book was Charlotte, or Charlie, Davis. She is a seventeen year old girl who struggles with depression and self harm, and continuously tries to turn her life around.

In the beginning of the novel, Charlie was a scared mute girl in a mental institution. Throughout the story, Charlie slowly realises her worth and learns how to accept herself as well as others.

In the story, I disliked Riley West. He was emotionally abusive in his relationship with Charlie. He took out his anger on her and made her do things she was uncomfortable with, like buying him drugs.

The ending of the story was kind of random. Nothing drastic had really happened for a while in the book, then Charlie took a little vacation with her friends because her boyfriends “friend”, Wendy, had just broken into her apartment and destroyed all of her things, and then her boyfriend and Wendy stole a car and left town. So Charlie needed a break. When she came back from her little trip, she was only there for enough time to pack her things. She then moved from her little town in Arizona all the way to New York, to become an assistant for an Artist. This all happened really quickly. So if I could change the ending of the story, I think I would slow it down a

little.
The quality that I would like to develop from a character in the book would be Charlies ability to persevere. How she kept strong through all the bad things that happened in her life. Even when her closest friends went and self-destructed, she tried her best.
Yes, some of the incidents do remind me of my own life. I understand Charlie’s struggling with the feeling of low self worth and believing that there is little reason to live. I also relate with how she slowly overcomes these things and pieces herself back together.
The book was written in first person, from the perspective of Charlie Davis. With the story from Charlie’s perspective, I got to really understand what she was feeling and what was happening to her. It would have been a lot different in a different point of view. I may not have got to know everything that Charlie was feeling, but it would have been interesting to see the other characters points. This probably would be very different considering it was Charlie’s story, it wouldn't have been right not having just her thoughts and feelings.