Skin game by caroline kettlewell quotes

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Feb 08, PM. Kaitlin 3 books view quotes. Dec 19, AM. Sarah 50 books view quotes. Nov 26, AM. Aug 29, PM. Jacey 26 books view quotes. I imagined lively, plump little corpuscles tumbling against each other like a miniature game of bumper cars. Everything is perfectly clear when looked at in the right light; I chose the school bathroom for my theater of operations because if you want your blood to be fresh to the task, you have to be handy to the microscope when you bring it forth.

I had brought my Swiss Army knife to school precisely for this purpose. It was recess. I would cut, and then I would quickstep down the hall to Mr. Davidson's classroom-with its shelves crowded with chunks of rock and skeletal remains and things floating pickled in Ball jars-and screw down the probing eye of 1OX magnification onto the very essence of my own self.

I found this plan so compelling it blinded me to other thought. The idea of the blood beckoned to me, hypnotic and seductive. How often do we know the blood of our veins? It reveals itself to us only as the herald of bad news: the injury, the illness, the sudden slip of the paring knife or the prick of the doctor's needle.

Why should we meet only in disaster? It wasn't as big a leap as you might imagine. I'd never been blood squeamish. I proudly displayed my scabs and scars, vaguely envious of my older sister, who seemed to garner all the really good injuries, the satisfyingly dramatic ones that needed stitches, and constructions of gauze and splint and tape, and shots and salves to ward off deliciously hideous consequences: lockjaw, sepsis, gangrene.

The key to success is to envision the thing in your mind. Draw the bright chrome of the blade along the slender rope of vein wrapping sinuous around your left wrist, and everything parts obediently beneath your command, like the Red Sea before Moses. Except it didn't. The knife blade was worn too dull, as dull as the dun walls of the bathroom where I stood.

With my arm braced against the warm metal shelf over a radiator, I could see the veins meandering blue and purple and green like a road map beneath the thin cover of my flesh. Only the frailest membrane of tissue keeping self from self.

Yet who would have thought that skin could have so much substance, so much resistance? I attempted and discarded in quick succession the can opener, the leather punch, and the flathead screwdriver.

I settled at length on the saw blade, an unhappy compromise. It scraped back and forth like a fiddler's bow against my arm, chafing the skin red and raw. Little white clumps of flesh gummed up the blade, and the stubborn shelter of my skin refused to give way.

The radiator clanked and hissed. The bathroom smelled of disinfectant and body functions. I stood there and sawed. Caroline wrote it using metaphors and similies that some things were lost to me. This book was ok but I would not reccommend it to those who are interested in this topic. May 05, Alexis rated it did not like it Shelves: memoir , non-fiction.

I was happy to see this book come out. The book is not about survival or recovery or even understanding why she begins cutting in the first place. It's simply one incident of self-harm after another with no underlying insight. Dec 06, Markus rated it really liked it.

The Skin War is a very mature rated book. It sheds light on a very serious issue, but in an extraordinary fashion. But by the end of the book she has become dependant of her once educational function. She The Skin War is a very mature rated book. She comes clean to her family, her greatest safety net, to make sure she can live without it, but is quickly the aim of judgement. A repeated phrase that the author uses it actually quite simple. Though it is made up of one word, I feel as if after reading it, there is an intense emotional connection to the word.

Caroline has lived a life of true courage. She grew distant from family, friends, teachers, significant others just so she could hide her secret that served no other purpose than demolishing herself. While her home and school environment becomes disastrous, the coping mechanism of choice is self harm. Hurting on the inside, but also applying that level of pain to her appearance.

I wished for nothing more than Caroline wrote in her book, because so much of it was relatable. I wished that I could've reached out to her while she struggled finding a source of happiness in life. I wish that I could've known her. Nov 29, Paulina rated it liked it. This was an okay book to read again.

I used to love this book, now it's just okay. If history about a person is your way to go, then read this book. This book is about Caroline Kettlewell. She basically wrote about her history of being a cutter. She was a creative, smart, and well treated by her family. She started cutting her legs and arms when she was only in the fifth grade. She didn't stop until she was around her twenties.

If you would like to read and get to know Caroline more, this is the This was an okay book to read again. If you would like to read and get to know Caroline more, this is the way to go. Jun 09, Carolyn Ellis rated it liked it. I was so excited to read this book, but it was definitely underwhelming. There were definitely some good parts, but overall, it took me a lot longer to finish this book than it should have.

I had to force myself to finish. Jan 25, Shannon Fay rated it really liked it Shelves: in-the-physical-bookcase , is-this-real-life. I am really enjoying this memoir. Caroline's writing is superb. It not only flows lyrically, but has just enough of a hint of sarcasm and wry wit to amuse me. Her writing is clever, the vocabulary rich and expressive, and the diction has a certain rhythm, a cadence that flows beautifully.

The writing itself is a joy to read, but the subject matter is beyond captivating. She not only enumerates her thoughts and feelings in a way that is shocking and bold, but also that captures you and allows you I am really enjoying this memoir.

She not only enumerates her thoughts and feelings in a way that is shocking and bold, but also that captures you and allows you to walk through her mind. I've never seen someone explain the tormented thought processes of someone who self harms so well.

She perfectly encapsulates the bizarre thoughts and feelings, the constant struggle and war within oneself, and how it makes very little sense, even to the person struggling with it. Caroline is incredibly perceptive, and better explains the complex nuances and often nonsensical impulses behind the desire to harm oneself than I thought possible. This book is poignant, intense, disturbing, illuminating, and more than anything else for me, comforting, in a strange sort of way.

Though as someone who has also had to contend with a predilection towards self-harm, I find it a bit disconcerting, because I find the author's disturbing, morbid, and just plain odd thought processes and feelings mirroring my own teenage thoughts and feelings far more than I'd care for and to a much lesser extent, even my current thoughts and feelings.

I'd much rather be able to continue in my denial and pretend that I don't still have some of those lugubrious feelings and anxieties, but reading this memoir is forcing me to confront some of that, albeit gently if I must confront myself in any capacity, I suppose a book is a good way to reconcile these things inside myself, because a book can be put down if necessary and it won't judge you. There are legitimately passages and whole chapters even, where it's as though I've ceased to read, and instead finally found an eloquent way to articulate what exactly is happening inside my head, what's bothering me, what I'm fretting about or contemplating.

And that freaks me out, because it's obvious in reading this memoir that there are moments, insofar as to be whole swaths of time, where Caroline's thoughts are pretty disturbed and she's clearly unstable, and I'm reluctant to admit that I also used to fall into that category far more than was healthy and occasionally I still do.

Though at the very least, there is some solidarity in this, and I certainly appreciate that, as I think every messed up person who reads and strongly relates to this book will. My only real qualm with this book is the ending. I guess I was just hoping for something MORE, some revelation, about how hard work and lots of therapy, mindfulness practices, lots of meditation, and some soul-searching helped Caroline to finally overcome her anxieties and learn to quiet the noise in her head.

Instead, we got some platitude about how in the end, the anxiety comes and goes, will always return, but that during the respites, that's when we must enjoy life to the fullest, and remember that it will always eventually go, and that so long as we can weather the storm, we can live through it. I suppose ultimately, I was hoping for more than "time heals all wounds," was hoping to hear how she overcame her anxieties and learned to quell them, rather than reading that eventually she learned to live with them and just deal with it, so that she no longer needed the coping mechanism of cutting.

Mostly I was just hoping for some sort of answer, and instead I get what I always do, that there are no answers, because this is life, and life is complicated and difficult like that, but that with enough time, wisdom, and perseverance, we can eventually learn to traverse life's difficulties.

In the end, any fault I find with this story is really my own concern, because this is Caroline's story, and this is her ending, her harrowing tale of how she learned to live with life's challenges, how she overcame cutting.

And really, how can anyone judge a memoir, how can you justly rate the story of someone else's life? I feel the only fair way to truly do so is to rate not the story itself, but the execution thereof. And to that end, this book is marvelous. The prose is both masterful and beautiful, and the writing is engaging. Beyond that, I think anyone who is or has struggled with self-harm can relate to most of the elements in this book, if not all of them, and certainly, this could be an illuminating read for anyone who knows someone who self-harms and struggles to understand it.

I think it took a lot of bravery and strength for Caroline to bare this much of herself and her struggle, and to share her story, and I think that anyone could admire and appreciate that. Nov 02, Elizabeth Smith rated it it was amazing. Just read this memoir for my abnormal psychology class, and I honestly loved it! Overall I feel that she articulated her story and struggles in a very beautiful way. Dec 01, Christina rated it it was amazing.

Starkly honest in its portrayal of of cutting as not quite a coping mechanism, but a solution to the entropy of life. Really excellent writing throughout, and not f This. Really excellent writing throughout, and not full of the obnoxious platitudes and tidy endings that feel forced and are often far too common in these stories.

Too often it feels like writers of these stories KNOW their audience and then sprinkle self-help rhetoric into their works, but Kettlewell respects her reader more than that and stays honest throughout, at times even breaking the 4th wall to address that very notion. Really excellent, and sure to stick with me for a while. Aug 01, jtabz rated it liked it Recommends it for: folks with bad childhoods and the people who love them. Shelves: memoir. Though this book has largely been touted as "the memoir of a cutter," I think it paints a far more comprehensive picture of life with an anxiety disorder.

As a writer, Kettlewell fares much better when she relies on her well-honed sense of irony than when she falls into sometimes belabored figurative language and verbose descriptions. Aug 09, Danae Lopez rated it it was amazing Shelves: to-buy. I think I'm going to cry a little. This book have so much insight about my life. As a person who has experienced so much things in her life I think sometimes a lot of paragraphs could have been written by myself. It's dark, hard and always talks about the mental health issues without any hesitation.

I really like this book I could say, one of my favourite books of the year I think I'm going to cry a little. I really like this book I could say, one of my favourite books of the year Dec 12, Maggie rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fiction , eating-disorders , mental-health.

A memoir of the authors fight with self harm and anorexia. Gives a good insight into the distorted thinking that accompanies these disorders. Finished rather abruptly Could have done with a lot more on how she overcame this. I just could not get into it. I have read a lot about self harm and experienced myself and I could not get into it. It was dull. However , I know many people will relate and love this book.

It is a true account and spot on a lot of things.. Jul 22, Jay rated it liked it. Not too bad, you may need a dictionary while you read this since she constantly feels the need to use several words less commonly used instead of simple ones.

I wouldn't mention this but it is seriously an excessive amount of times I needed to dictionary check words. Oct 04, Sonia Crites rated it really liked it.

Great memoir about cutting and eating disorders. The author speaks openly about the issues she struggled with and her perspective during that time. Well written may be trigger for some. Dec 04, B. Read this back in my undergrad years as a psych major. Jan 30, Cheryl rated it liked it Shelves: purchased.

On one hand, it's a memoir, you can't say that one persons opinion or translation of their own life is wrong. However, I had a few issues with this.

Firstly, the writing style. At times I found the sentences too long, broken up by comma upon comma. These sentences didn't read very well and sometimes I feel there was more commas than necessary in a sentence.

Some of the language used didn't add up with the feeling of what was being told and the flow just didn't work very well for me. I nearly DNR'd this book.