Cut is an interesting story written by Patricia McCormick about a young girl in a struggle to find herself. This story focuses on a fifteen-year-old girl named Callie who is sent to a mental facility called Sea Pines for her issue of cutting herself. Her whole problem arose when her brother got really sick one night while she was home alone. She had to run the bar to find her father and get him back to take her little brother, Sam., to the hospital. That night, he was diagnosed with Asthma and she blamed herself for giving it to him when she yelled at him and made him cry. Since then, she had been battling herself in her mind and eventually turned to cutting.

Her parents and doctor eventually found out about her problem. To try and make her better, they sent her to the mental facility to try and get her the help that they could not give her. She doesn’t talk much while she is there. That is, until another girl joins her group discussion group who has the same problem for different reasons. After meeting this new girl, Amanda, she works harder to find a way to change so she can go back to her family.

Eventually, she sneaks out of the facility and runs away. She calls her dad and he comes to meet her where she ended up. When he gets there, he gets her something to eat and they begin silent until she spills her guts telling her father why she does what she does. She explains why she believed she game Sam Asthma and by the end of her confession, her father doesn’t know what to say. When he speaks, he explains how Sam was going to get it anyways and that’s just something he was born with and that she had nothing to do with him getting sick.

After hearing her father out, she decides she wants him to take her back to the facility so she can get better. She wants to be better for her family and for her little brother.

This book is a story of depression but also self-realization. She didn’t know how much she really wanted to get better until she met Amanda and that changed her whole view on the subject of her problem.

If you like stories that involve depression and struggling to better yourself, you will like this book. It is currently available in the High School library and the Cuyahoga Public Library.