Skin Game: A Memoir

As you grow up, you're taught that every scar tells a story and I believe that Caroline Kettlewell has proved that point.

This book is a remarkable memoir of growing up with self-mutilation. She tells of how it looked, felt, etc. It can get a bit graphic, but sometimes, you need the graphic stuff in order to understand the feelings.

I think that this book is exquisite. I think every self-injurer could identify with the feelings that Caroline went through. I think that non-'cutters' could identify with some of the feelings, too.

This book gives cutters a feeling of not being alone and non-cutters a way to understand what it's like to hurt so much that you have to hurt yourself.

There aren't enough words to describe how awesome this book is. show more I just hope that it helps you to understand how serious self-mutilation really is. show less

I read Kettelwell's "Skin Game" years ago when I was 16, and going through a rough patch in my life. It only took me about two weeks to read it. I have to say, I didn't like in the beginning when she refer to her scars as "Sins" but I did like how she threw in the whole Southern experience, "Scarlett O'Hara" and "Gone with the Wind," I'm a sucker for that culture.
Kettlewell writing is a little strong for me. She made me, the reader, feel benith her; She uses such words expressing her cutting that to the mind of an English teacher would understand, but to the simple minded reader...she needed to use small words...She jumps from first person point of view to third persons.

She writes of her life as a long script. She is the actor and this show more is her play. After a while, it becomes boring and tedious.

In the end, she brought everything together, when she writes "I stop cutting because I always could have stop cutting; that the pain and inelegant truth. No Matter how compelling the urge, the act itself was always a choice. I had no power over flood tite of emotions that drove me to that brink, but I had the power to decide whether not to step over. Eventually I decided not to......You have to make your journey, and bear its scars" I think that passage is so true and cleverly written, one of the best parts of the entire book.

I don't recommend this book for people dealing with self harm. Chances are, it won't help you at all. show less

I got to chapter 15 and couldn't take it anymore. It's not that this was a poorly written book just not my style. I don't like books where I have to think to much about the language used in order to understand what is being said. It was written in way to academic style for me. Soooo on to the next.

Angsty teenage girls will love this

Fantastic book about the journey of a teenage cutter.