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GIRL IN PIECES

Kathleen Glasgow

GIRL IN PIECES is the stunning, heartbreaking story of what it means to live in the world when your body is your own worst enemy. It marks the arrival of Kathleen Glasgow, a major new voice in young adult literature.
Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis is a cutter.

While most girls her age are thinking about dating and where to go to college, Charlie is struggling just to survive. After losing her best friend Ellis, then her home, Charlie finds herself living on the streets of Saint Paul, Minnesota, where every day is a fight to live. After a traumatic event lands her in the hospital, Charlie finds what might be her best hope: a recovery program for girls just like her. When her insurance runs out, though, Charlie is back on the streets, alone. Through the kindness of her old friend, Mikey, the roadie for a band in Arizona, Charlie finds herself in the endless desert of Tucson, surrounded by musicians, artists, and eccentrics, and, in particular, a washed-up singer named Riley West.

Kathleen Glasgow has received fellowships for the writing of this novel from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Jerome Foundation. Her work has been published in Cimarron Review, Bellingham Review, and Clackamas Literary Review. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota and writes for The Writer’s Almanac.
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Published 2016-08-31 by Delacorte

Book

Published 2016-08-31 by Delacorte

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UK: Oneworld ANZ: HarperCollins Poland/Jaguar Spain/Montena Italy/Rizzoli Portuguese/Planet Czech/Dobrovsky Estonia/Päikese Kirjastus Turkey/Marti

11 of Our Most Anticipated Debuts of the Second Half of 2016: Every small victory will squeeze your heart in this beautifully paced must-read. Read more...

the deal for THE TENDER KIT by Kathleen Glasgow has been selected as Publisher's Marketplace's Deal of the Day: Kathleen Glasgow's debut THE TENDER KIT, pitched as a GIRL, INTERRUPTED for a new generation, the story of a girl on the verge of losing herself to a debilitating mental illness and her journey back from the edge, to Krista Marino at Delacorte, in a major deal, for two books, in a pre-empt, for publication in fall 2016, by Julie Stevenson in her first deal at Waxman Leavell Literary Agency (NA).

This sharp and beautiful portrait….illuminates not only the anxiety of youth but the vulnerability and terror of life in general.

Glasgow skillfully juggles multiple difficult topics (homelessness, self-harm, etc.) without dipping into melodrama. Charlie’s intimate first-person narration places readers deep within her experience while maintaining awareness of the outside world and the people in it. Read more...

Charlie Davis's voice is diamond-beautiful and diamond-sharp which, when strung together by a delicious story and memorable characters, creates a rare and powerful read. Kathleen Glasgow's THE TENDER KIT is a treasure of a novel.

Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way "girls who write their pain on their bodies" scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together. This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression. Read more...

THE TENDER KIT has the breath of life; every character in it is fully alive. Charlie Davis’s complexities are drawn with great understanding and subtlety.

Entertainment Weekly featured the book as a Big YA Novel to look out for in its recap of Book Expo America. Read more...

GIRL IN PIECES by Kathleen Glasgow has debuted at #4 on the New York Times Bestseller List!

Wise, unflinching, and a balm for the kind of heartbreak that can't ever be fully mended.

Kathleen Glasgow's THE TENDER KIT is a harrowing tightrope of a novel -- vivid, devastating, and beautifully written.