Girl in Pieces

Girl in Pieces is the New York Times bestselling young adult contemporary novel by Kathleen Glasgow originally published in 2016. It was a New York Public Library Best Book for Teens selection and Amelia Bloomer Project Award Selection. The novel explores a teen’s recovery journey from self-harm, exploring the roles of community, healthy patterns, and acceptance of dualities. This study guide refers to the 2016 paperback edition.

Plot Summary

The novel opens with Charlotte “Charlie” Davis regaining consciousness after attempting to take her own life. At 17, Charlie has lost her father to suicide, been physically abused by her mother, seen her best friend suffer brain damage from a failed suicide attempt, been homeless, and been threatened with rape multiple times. Her coping mechanisms through these traumatic events have been both healthy (making art and listening to music) and unhealthy (cutting and alcohol).

After her suicide attempt, Charlie is placed in Creeley Center, a group home for girls who self-harm. Diagnosed with non-suicidal self-injury, impulse-control disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder, Charlie is also suffering from selective mutism. Her physical and emotional traumas weigh so heavily on her that she cannot speak. Being at Creeley feels safe to Charlie, and after a week of individual and group therapy, she begins to make progress, using her voice and her art to express herself. That progress is cut short, however, when she is discharged due to lack of insurance.

Because she is still a minor, Charlie is discharged to her mother. Knowing that this will impede her recovery, she reaches out to her friend Mikey, and he intervenes, sending her mother a bus ticket for Charlie to join him in Tucson, Arizona, where he attends college. When Charlie arrives, Mikey is away with his band. She navigates her first days in the city with the healthy coping mechanisms she learned at Creeley: breathing, repetitive motion, and drawing. By the time Mikey returns, she has found a job washing dishes at a coffeehouse, True Grit, and her own studio apartment.

Despite her progress, Charlie continues to struggle with unhealthy patterns. She keeps a cutting kit with broken glass, bandages, and ointment as a backup if she needs release and cannot find it through healthy means, though she hides it out of easy reach. She is drawn into a relationship with an older man, Riley West, True Grit’s cook and a failed musician who abuses drugs and alcohol. She allows an opportunity to take free art classes slip away because she does not want to be away from Riley, though she knows he is too troubled himself to be a consistent positive influence on her.

Financial instability and lack of community compound Charlie’s struggles. Her income as a dishwasher is not enough to pay for both rent and essentials. When Riley offers her food and cash to buy his drugs for her, she wants but cannot afford to say no. Though Mikey’s desire to help Charlie is earnest, he is a college student without the training, resources, and experiences to provide adequate help. He has his band and a girlfriend, both of which make Charlie feel like an outsider in his life. Her past traumas have made it difficult for her to trust and connect with others, even those who want to help her.

Charlie’s life reaches a crisis point after Blue, who she met at Creeley, comes to stay with her. Like Charlie, Blue battles old patterns but genuinely wants to recover. When she learns that a girl from Creeley has committed suicide, Blue goes on a drug bender with Riley, whose drug dealer beats her up and trashes Charlie’s apartment. Overwhelmed with hopelessness, Charlie coats herself in broken glass but is rescued by two of her True Grit coworkers.

They take her to visit their grandfather, Felix, an artist in New Mexico. He encourages her to find the right medium to express her story, and her healing journey accelerates. She returns briefly to Tucson, where she is reconciled with a now clean Blue, Mikey, and Riley, who has entered a rehabilitation program. At the end of the novel, she returns to New Mexico to begin working as Felix’s assistant, having left her cutting kit behind.