Cut - by Patricia McCormick (Paperback)

About the Book

While confined to a mental hospital, thirteen-year-old Callie slowly comes to understand some of the reasons behind her self-mutilation, and gradually starts to get better.

Book Synopsis

An astonishing novel about pain, release, and recovery from two-time National Book Award finalist, Patricia McCormick.

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.

Callie cuts herself. Never too deep, never enough to die. But enough to feel the pain. Enough to feel the scream inside.

Now she's at Sea Pines, a "residential treatment facility" filled with girls struggling with problems of their own. Callie doesn't want to have anything to do with them. She doesn't want to have anything to do with anyone. She won't even speak.

But Callie can only stay silent for so long...

Review Quotes

Praise for Cut:

An ALA Quick Pick for YA Readers

A NYPL Book for the Teen Age

* "First-timer McCormick tackles a side of mental illness that is rarely seen in young-adult literature in a believable and sensitive manner... A thoughtful look at teenage mental illness and recovery." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Like E. L. Konigsburg's Silent to the Bone and Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, Cut is another authentic-sounding novel in which elective mutism plays a part, this time with humor making the pain of adolescence gone awry more bearable...an exceptional character study of a young woman and her hospital mates who struggle with demons so severe that only their bodies can confess." --Booklist

About the Author

Patricia McCormick, a finalist for the National Book Award, is the acclaimed author of CUT, MY BROTHER'S KEEPER, SOLD, and PURPLE HEART. Her debut novel, CUT, was an ALA Quick Pick for YA Readers, an ALA Best Book for Teenagers, and a NYPL Book for the Teen Age. McCormick was named a New York Foundation on the Arts fellow in 2004. She is also the winner of the 2009 German Peace Prize for Youth Literature. She is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and lives Manhattan.