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A review by maggiemaggio
Bleed Like Me by Christa Desir
3.0
To say I was excited about Bleed Like Me is a bit of an understatement, I thought Desir's Fault Line was completely brilliant, but, even with my love of Fault Line I went into Bleed Like Me with tempered expectations. The idea of a "Sid and Nancy" relationship for teens didn't do anything for me and while I find cutters and the idea of cutting to be really psychologically interesting, it's also not something I was really seeking out in a book.
Most of the time I think I'm fairly good at separating myself from characters and realizing that they're their own people who make their own decisions, but I struggled with that in Bleed Like Me and that definitely colored my opinion of the book. The thing about Bleed Like Me is that everything felt like just a push too far. Gannon, the main character has a truly terrible life. Her parents were fine parents for a long time, but several years before the book starts they adopted three boys from Central America and the boys are complete and utter nightmares. They obviously had a tough upbringing on the streets, but their misbehavior, malice, and ungratefulness was so horrifying that I never bought into it and eventually it became more of a caricature.
Once the brothers come into the picture Gannon's parents need to spend all of their energy on the boys and Gannon, and her parents' relationship, suffers as a result. When the book starts Gannon doesn't have much in her life, she hates being home because of her brothers' behavioral issues and the way it wears at her parents, she's a mediocre student, and she has no real friends. The only good thing in her life is her job at the local hardware store. The store's owner is kind of like a gruff father figure and her co-worker, a fellow high school student, obviously cares about Gannon. Bleed Like Me wasn't this kind of book, but I still found myself wishing that there had been more about her job at the hardware store and her relationship with the owner and her coworker.
When Gannon meets Brooks she is ripe to fall under the influence of a charming, bossy boy who pays her quite a bit of attention. Brooks is where I had the most difficult time distancing my thoughts about the book and its characters from my own personal feelings and opinions. I had expected Brooks to be more charming and slick, but he turns out to be just as much as a mess as Gannon and I just didn't understand his appeal. Brooks comes from his own complicated background and I never was able to really grasp if he was intentionally manipulative (which is what I expected) or if he was just as lost as Gannon and didn't really understand what he was doing. In the end I didn't really think it mattered so much, the truth is probably somewhere in between, but I still never really got a grasp on Brooks as a character and as much as I tried to put myself in Gannon's shoes I just couldn't understand, even with how terrible the rest of her life was, the appeal of Brooks and how much she gave up for Brooks because, as he was at the time, he was no prize.
The biggest surprise of Bleed Like Me was how little the act of cutting and Gannon's issues around being a cutter played into the story. I'm certainly not going to say I wanted more cutting in the story, but, given what the unique and compelling way Desir handled sexual assault in Fault Line I was looking forward to seeing how she handled the problem of cutting, something that has affected/still affects many people I know. But the way the story played out the cutting was maybe not even a secondary story, but a tertiary or quaternary story. When the cutting did come into the story, which really was probably only a handful of times, the connection to the rest of Gannon's life never materialized and I found myself having to connect a lot of the dots to figure out how she ended up being a cutter.
A lot of this has been critical, but I still think Desir is a brilliant writer. She is truly not afraid to go to dark places and tackle tough topics and she handles both of those things, for the most part, really beautifully. Even though I often felt like, combined, many of the things Gannon does and experiences felt a tad over the top, many of the things Desir writes about here are pressing problems to a lot of teenagers and families out there. Kids with behavioral problems, absentee parents, parents with marital problems, feeling like an outsider, toxic relationships, drug use, and cutting are all problems many teenagers and families will sadly experience in one way or another and I love that there's an author out there writing so honestly and bravely about these topics. Whether it's a good or bad thing the story of Bleed Like Me was also never predictable and I appreciated that I had no clue how the story was ultimately going to play out.
Bottom Line: I would love to say that Bleed Like Me had the same impact on me as Fault Line, but it just didn't. Whether it's because of my own bias or because of the over-the-top nature of the story the emotional connection to the story just wasn't there. I still admire Desir's writing and her ability to handle sensitive subjects, but I wish she had handled this one a little differently.
I received an electronic review copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss. All opinions are my own.
This review first appeared on my blog.
Most of the time I think I'm fairly good at separating myself from characters and realizing that they're their own people who make their own decisions, but I struggled with that in Bleed Like Me and that definitely colored my opinion of the book. The thing about Bleed Like Me is that everything felt like just a push too far. Gannon, the main character has a truly terrible life. Her parents were fine parents for a long time, but several years before the book starts they adopted three boys from Central America and the boys are complete and utter nightmares. They obviously had a tough upbringing on the streets, but their misbehavior, malice, and ungratefulness was so horrifying that I never bought into it and eventually it became more of a caricature.
Once the brothers come into the picture Gannon's parents need to spend all of their energy on the boys and Gannon, and her parents' relationship, suffers as a result. When the book starts Gannon doesn't have much in her life, she hates being home because of her brothers' behavioral issues and the way it wears at her parents, she's a mediocre student, and she has no real friends. The only good thing in her life is her job at the local hardware store. The store's owner is kind of like a gruff father figure and her co-worker, a fellow high school student, obviously cares about Gannon. Bleed Like Me wasn't this kind of book, but I still found myself wishing that there had been more about her job at the hardware store and her relationship with the owner and her coworker.
When Gannon meets Brooks she is ripe to fall under the influence of a charming, bossy boy who pays her quite a bit of attention. Brooks is where I had the most difficult time distancing my thoughts about the book and its characters from my own personal feelings and opinions. I had expected Brooks to be more charming and slick, but he turns out to be just as much as a mess as Gannon and I just didn't understand his appeal. Brooks comes from his own complicated background and I never was able to really grasp if he was intentionally manipulative (which is what I expected) or if he was just as lost as Gannon and didn't really understand what he was doing. In the end I didn't really think it mattered so much, the truth is probably somewhere in between, but I still never really got a grasp on Brooks as a character and as much as I tried to put myself in Gannon's shoes I just couldn't understand, even with how terrible the rest of her life was, the appeal of Brooks and how much she gave up for Brooks because, as he was at the time, he was no prize.
The biggest surprise of Bleed Like Me was how little the act of cutting and Gannon's issues around being a cutter played into the story. I'm certainly not going to say I wanted more cutting in the story, but, given what the unique and compelling way Desir handled sexual assault in Fault Line I was looking forward to seeing how she handled the problem of cutting, something that has affected/still affects many people I know. But the way the story played out the cutting was maybe not even a secondary story, but a tertiary or quaternary story. When the cutting did come into the story, which really was probably only a handful of times, the connection to the rest of Gannon's life never materialized and I found myself having to connect a lot of the dots to figure out how she ended up being a cutter.
A lot of this has been critical, but I still think Desir is a brilliant writer. She is truly not afraid to go to dark places and tackle tough topics and she handles both of those things, for the most part, really beautifully. Even though I often felt like, combined, many of the things Gannon does and experiences felt a tad over the top, many of the things Desir writes about here are pressing problems to a lot of teenagers and families out there. Kids with behavioral problems, absentee parents, parents with marital problems, feeling like an outsider, toxic relationships, drug use, and cutting are all problems many teenagers and families will sadly experience in one way or another and I love that there's an author out there writing so honestly and bravely about these topics. Whether it's a good or bad thing the story of Bleed Like Me was also never predictable and I appreciated that I had no clue how the story was ultimately going to play out.
Bottom Line: I would love to say that Bleed Like Me had the same impact on me as Fault Line, but it just didn't. Whether it's because of my own bias or because of the over-the-top nature of the story the emotional connection to the story just wasn't there. I still admire Desir's writing and her ability to handle sensitive subjects, but I wish she had handled this one a little differently.
I received an electronic review copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss. All opinions are my own.
This review first appeared on my blog.