Even though Charlie and her friends have some serious issues, there are a lot of positive takeaways from the story: It's OK to work through issues slowly, which sometimes can mean focusing on getting through the next 10 minutes. It's hard to start a new life, but you can make changes and progress. Sometimes you have to create your own family and support network if your own family can't be there for you. It's good to open yourself up to others and ask for help, even if it sometimes results in getting hurt. Charlie is flawed, broken. But she is human, and so am I. And if a girl with no parents, who was sexually assaulted, abandoned, and isolated could fight her way to the top, then so can I. Still Beating is one of the darkest books on the list. It’s a dark romance, not because of some of the things the characters have going on in their heads, but circumstances, everything. We have Dean and Cora, and they are longtime enemies. They don’t get along. However, Dean is marrying Cora’s older sister. They are engaged. So Dean’s always around, and they have to deal with each other.

The circumstances that have led her to this point include: a depressive and beloved father who killed himself; an abusive mother who took his death out on her only child; a best friend who also attempts suicide; and the severing of ties between mother and daughter followed by a stint of homelessness that culminates with Charlie living in “Seed House”, where she’s pimped out to older men. Her drug addict friends Evan and Dump encourage her to comply. Her favorite books when she was growing up were A Wrinkle In Time by Madeline L’Engle, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, and The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton. She always wanted to be a writer when she grew up. Her favorite time to write in in the morning when she has already had some coffee and can look at the birds out the window. She likes to search for vintage prom dresses online from the fifties and really likes pepperoni. Much is made of Charlie's crushes and sexual attraction to a few different characters. A doctor and patient are caught having sex at the treatment center, but it isn't shown. Charlie recounts listening to her friend have sex with a boy. A teen character has a sexual relationship with a man 10 years older than she, and a few of the sex scenes are described in detail. Charlie describes seeing two people having sex in a kitchen. Art is more than an escape for Charlie, it's how she expresses her feelings and communicates when she physically can't talk. Do you have an outlet like that?The plot never felt slow- even if it may have felt slow at times, I just couldn't stop reading. The book captivated me, hooked me in like a fish on a line, and I couldn't stop. I'm glad I didn't, because this book is just....I don't even know. Sorry. My crazy self decided that yes, it’s an AMAZING idea to read this and a little life at the same time! Who doesn’t want more trauma? I'm just gonna admit it, I know nothing about cutters and I truly don't understand how pain makes someone feel better. As someone who is in near constant pain, I don't understand why someone would want more pain. The amount of emotional pain you would have be in to harm yourself to feel better must be ENORMOUS. It makes me sad and I hope you know that help is out there. I'm not crazy. I don't see what the big deal is about what happened. But apparently someone does think it's a big deal because here I am. I bet it was my mother. She always overreacts.

Glasgow has written a Girl, Interrupted for a new generation. Her assured debut is a mad-girl story In the podcast’s first season, she’s covering the true crime case she solved last year, and then season two will go into something else. However, this all changes because one of her classmates approaches her and says someone has gone missing in the small village where she lives. So she thinks that everyone thinks she is the only one who can solve it because the police are doing a crappy job as usual. Charlotte Davis lost everything in her life; her father, her mother, her best friend and her direction in life. She became homeless and lived on a sex house where she witnessed abuse. She doesn't have a good relationship with her mother because she neglected and abused her. Handling all these is too much for her, given she's 17 years old. It's indeed traumatic. Every emotion and pain builds inside her. As a means of coping, she cuts / self-harming herself to release it and continuously do it until she finds peace. Here, we get to follow her journey of vulnerability and healing from the mental facility to the real world where she meets new people and explore to find a sense of direction. She keeps herself busy and productive to distract herself on moments she's tempted.I connected with Charlie. I felt her desperation for money and a job and a place to live, but I couldn't really connect with her pain and self-harm. Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide. Get started Close Glasgow’s debut doesn’t shy away from the physical act of cutting or exploring the physical and emotional residue left behind. We see Charlie hide the shame of her scars. We know Charlie feels unloved and unloveable because of her scars. And yet the thing she keeps so dear, so close to her is her “tender kit” the small safety blanket (shards of glass, gauze and ointment) that she uses to drain the pain from inside. Her tender kit is her comfort because people are unreliable. People hurt. Cutting transfers that pain for a brief swell of moments.