Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together. Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way "girls who write their pain on their bodies" scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a "semifamous" local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends.
After spending time in treatment with other young women like her-who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves-Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she "like-likes" but who had pined for Ellis instead. Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. Her prose gets right down inside human fragility, tenderness, fury, gusto, and strength-leaving sweet, sharp images that are impossible to forget.Īfter surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself. Downham keenly weaves together musings, revelations, confrontations, and poignancy. The writing, fluidly moving between both Katie’s and Mary’s third-person perspectives, is a wonder. Katie and Mary walk daily to a cafe, seeking something Mary always forgets but finding, instead, a waitress who ignites Katie’s own fire. But she’s had heartbreaking losses too, some of which torment her with their emotional pain even after dementia has stolen their details. She broke free from the repressive social mores of white 1950s England. Mary’s always been a glamorous, fiery sparkplug.
Pain and worry seethe from events long-past-Mary’s unwed teen pregnancy and the unknowing Caroline’s tumultuous childhood as the supposed daughter of Mary’s sister-and current: Katie’s fear of admitting that she likes girls. Mum’s smotheringly protective of her kids and now of Mary too, though coldly, without sympathy. Caroline, enraged, wants to leave her mother, Mary, with social services, but despite Mary’s dementia, Mary’s sent home with them, to squish into the three-bedroom flat with Mum, Katie, and Katie’s younger brother. But suddenly here one is, because the grandmother’s boyfriend just died and his emergency contact was Katie’s mother, Caroline. Three generations of a family wrestle with secrets.
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