From Library Journal
Fifteen-year-old figure skater and private-school scholarship student Katie Roskova has no time for friends. Her self-sacrificing mother makes sure of that. In public, Katie wears a megawatt smile meant to fool everyone, but she hides a dark secret. Sometimes she "spaces out" and cuts herself, which seems to lower her stress. One day after repeatedly banging her head into the wall following a difficult skating session, Katie is whisked away to the hospital and ordered into therapy. Much as Katie resists the help of therapist Sandy Sherman, he becomes a source of hope. Psychotherapist Levenkron, who dealt with anorexia in The Best Little Girl in the World (1978), offers no neat, tidy ending, but Katie makes progress. Despite its resemblance to a YA "problem novel," this work offers psychological insights that run deep. Levenkron has taken a timely issue threatening many adolescents today and successfully created a sympathetic and suspenseful story.?Keddy Ann Outlaw, Harris Cty. P.L., Houston
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Booklist
Like his first novel Best Little Girl in the World (1989), about a teenager with anorexia, this one, written mostly with YAs in mind, also brings to light a devastating problem among young people. Pretty, smart, and a talented ice-skater, 15-year-old Katie Roskova seems to have a lot going for her. In fact, her public face and her private one are vastly different. She's actually a frightened, insecure, lonely child, who depends on self-mutilation (she cuts herself with a scissors or a knife until she bleeds) to stay grounded in the pressure cooker she knows as her "real world." There's not much subtlety in either characterization (the humane psychiatrist, the horrible mother, the supportive therapy group) or plot. But Levenkron evokes the magical thinking, the loss of control, and the other psychological particulars associated with self-mutilation so adeptly that readers can't help but be drawn into Katie's bizarre, frightening world. The girl's struggle to regain control won't be easy to forget. Stephanie Zvirin
--Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
