A Review: Girls in Pieces by Katleen Glasgow

By Trailblazer Blog Writer, Stuti Jain

“Imagine the worst in your mind, then speak to it kindly”- Rupi Kaur

Having become a synonym to the seemingly tokenized Sad Girl trope, Girl in Pieces itself seems to represent a whole genre, and by extension, an entire class of people. 

While I, of course, resent this generalization,  if one were to try to put one face to the entire masses of “troubled teens,” there were far worse options than Girl in Pieces. It does what many overly generalized books do not- it pulls no punches. The author aims not to somehow educate the entire diverse population about the span of a thousand-something disorders in 300 pages, but rather constructs one singular story, one raw and explicit and, ultimately brimming with courage. The author counsels us to appreciate the unsung heroes that are human beings, managing to tackle a severe situation while advocating a gentle kindness that does not discriminate or differentiate- lacking the elitist and comparative approach that unfortunately has become customary for these kinds of books.

The media often makes the generalization- perhaps stemming from a desire to short circuit the creative process, or perhaps not noticing their fallacy. To assume that in order to make a book marketable to the largest possible audience (and also assuming that this majority of people have not struggled with mental illness themselves) often results in a book making some sort of claim or argument that I call look-how-much-wore-we-have-it syndrome. This approach, 99 times out of 100, not only fails to make it’s intended point but comes off as insufferable and robotic. The reality of human nature, especially in an era in which we are exposed to horror stories with the click of a button, is that skilled writing, not sensationalism or intensity, is what causes us to empathize with a story.

The media often assumes that the sheer untouchability or rarity of a problem is directly representative of it’s importance- assuming that a person’s being ordinary invalidates their pain, and therefore the further one gets from “ordinary”, the greater validity is attached to their suffering. (Untrue, in fact, many times the usage of pathos and realism is much more effective.) This, I believe, is directly responsible for the glamorization and appropriation of mental illness, also prevalent in literature.  When being shown to teens that rarity= significance, a desire to be perceived as significant can perpetuate the glamorization-backlash-hatred-stigmatization cycle (see https://www.theteenmagazine.com/our-new-strategy-to-stigmatize-mental-illness for more information). 

“ Maybe it's not the fear of being uninteresting, but the fear of not being understood and given.empathy. The media never empathises with issues that people face normally and to a normal degree. It's assumed someone with normal problems already has them sorted out and that it's too basic to touch upon. Human struggle is normal, but it's only empathised with in media when the struggle becomes unique and abnormal. The struggle for empathy creates a drive for abnormality.”

- Lemon_Cheescakes, Pinterest

Girl In Pieces, for all it’s un-relatableness to the vast majority of people, has an abrupt sensitivity. It describes somebody who is painfully and wholly human, so much so that I find myself wondering how much of the story is simply the author writing her pain on a different canvas.

Girl in Pieces shines with something- a tenderness, a soft, melodic hope- and this, I think, is what truly makes the piece shine. The author’s state of mind when writing this piece- long since recovered and almost reminiscing- truly shows. She is careful not to write her own biases into the work, she approaches her experiences with thoughtfulness rather than self-victimization, and rather than attempting to glamorize or rationalize her experience- she tells stories exactly how they should be told- painfully and unflinchingly.