On and Off Campus Blog: Girl In Pieces – A book on what it means to pick oneself back up
By: Ellis Wee ’27
Reading has always been my escape. It is my door to the outside world. Whenever I had access
to my school’s library, I found myself stuffing books into my school bag. When I couldn’t, my
mom would bring me to my local library, and I would check out a pile of books. I am lucky to
have parents that have always supported my interests and who didn’t mind making the extra stop
to drop me off.
I remember on my 12th birthday going into Barnes and Nobles and purchasing a few books.
Among them was the book Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow. The pages of my copy of the
book would get torn, stained by pen, and dog-eared dozens of times over. I didn’t know it then,
but Charlie’s story would become one of the books that would comfort me through my middle
school years.
Girl in Pieces features Charlie Davis, a 17-year-old girl who, at the beginning of the book, has been
admitted to the Creeley Center, a mental clinic. Life has thrown everything at her, from losing
her father to a suicide attempt, to living a hard life on the streets. However, Charlie still manages
to make something good out of her situation, finding allies like Casper, her therapist, and Louisa,
her roommate. Louisa is the one who comforts her upon her first coming to the hospital and
gives her some familiarity throughout Charlie’s stay. At first Charlie struggles in the center being
defiant and refusing treatment. However, after a while, she starts to learn ways to cope and deal
without relying on her old vices.
It is then that she is discharged from the Creeley Center to live with her mom. But instead of going home, she goes to live in Phoenix, Arizona, in her friend Mikey’s apartment, while he is away on tour. At first everything seems to be going pretty well for Charlie; she gets a job washing dishes in a cafe, buys an apartment, and reconnects with Mikey upon his arrival.
But facing reality outside of Creeley, also means that Charlie must meet the challenges of
the outside world and overcome them. Mikey is the unintentional catalyst for this, as he rejects
her advances on him. Everything starts to go downhill as she finds herself involved with Riley,
an ex-famous singer who works at the cafe. He takes her moment of weakness and her past and
offers her “love” and “affection.” With this power over her, he gets her to do activities that
derail her from her path of recovery, like doing drug runs and starting to drink. This all comes to
a head when she and Riley fight about him cheating on her with Wendy. Soon after, she finds
her dorm room trashed by Wendy. In her anger and frustration, she smashes a bottle and hurts
herself, before promptly passing out. This incident opens Charlie’s eyes to the many friends and
allies that she has found, and with these people, she finds herself slowly recovering.
Charlie’s story is one that reminds me that life is not without its ups and downs. In that
way, Charlie is a very 3-dimensional and human character. She has her flaws and times in which
she fails, but in the end she perseveres. Her journey is riddled with pain and loss, but she gets up
and continues trying. It is the way that Charlie continues to brush off the dirt from her knees and
continue on despite being pushed down again and again that keeps me reading. But Girl in Pieces
is also a reminder in my own life, continuing to stand up and try again.
Meet the student authors of the On and Off Campus blog!
