The Luckiest Girl in the World : A Young Skater Battles Her Self-Destructive Impulses

Katie Roskova is a preteen ice skater striving to be a champion. She attends a private school where she keeps up her popularity, her 3.5 G.P.A, and most importantly, her smile. Along with her hectic schedule, each day Katie also shelters a secret. This secret is the only thing that keeps her sane when she begins to lose sight of her goals and her grip on reality, what she calls `spacing out'. She knows that is anyone ever finds out about her secret, she will be thought of as a monster. So she hides her secret, just as she hides the pair of scissors that are now lying in her bag protected by a clean white washcloth. The same pair that, previously that day, slid down her wrists, her elbows, her thighs, anywhere she could easily hide away. She would be tagged as a 'cutter' if anyone bothers to pay attention, but nobody expects it. Katie hides her secret well and always has, but the one-day she slips her English teacher starts to suspect the pretty little skater girl. Katie begins to lose control and her world, as she knows it, begins to spin quickly out of control. She is then challenged with keeping up her championship dreams, not disappointing her mother or her counselor, Sandy, and keeping her `condition' under control. Steven Levenkron, the author of The Luckiest Girl in the World, does a respectable job portraying self-mutilation, which is a rising issue that is threatening teens and adolescents more and more each day. He, in my opinion, takes things a step farther. Instead of writing about what people commonly think `cutters' are, which is reclusive, depressed, and lacking friends, he writes about the truth. How self-mutilation touches the lives of everyone including the people like Katie, who you think are too wonderful to believe that they could ever be involved in something of that stature. The Luckiest Girl in the World is an exceptionally written novel that can be enjoyed by everyone. It is inspirational, compassionate, and tells you the truth about what people are going through when they turn to self-mutilation. People like Katie, who think that they are not the `cutting' type and are confused by what they do, can read this novel and regain their hope. It tells `cutters' that they are not alone and people will not completely hate them for what they do. It also shows people who are not `cutters' what it feels like to be in that kind of situation, in full force. I can say that this novel is an ultimate piece of salvation.

First off, yes, it has its faults. The therapist, Sandy Sherman, is obviously a self-insertion and Katie's skating is something that few people could relate to. The plot line is easily predictable and nearly identical to that of "The Best Little Girl in the World." Keep in mind that the idea isn't to entertain, but rather, to educate people about self-injury. Her parents are rather stereotypical (abusive mother, not-there father), but several of my friends who cut have similar parents. They're not identical, but it's a close enough variation to be believable. I'm not saying ALL self-harmers parents fit into that stereotype, but some do. I've noticed that a lot of people have criticized the dissociative parts of the novel ("I don't space out like that when I cut, so it's total BS," etc). True, only about half of cutters dissociate. It would have been nice if that'd been explained more clearly, but it didn't fit into the plot particularly well to do so. I think the hope is that people might read his non-fiction book on self-harm after reading Luckiest Girl, or look into it elsewhere to get more information. It's obviously not possible to include all the information on self-harm in one book, especially a fiction. I've also seen criticisms about him choosing a young girl to play the roll, since not all cutters are young women. Yes, it would have been nice if he'd clairifed that not all cutters are young women, but statistically (to my knowledge), most cutters are middle school/high school teen girls. Again, it's not fair to ask him to cover all possibilities in one young adult book. He choose the most common victim age/sex. For one of the first books on the subject, that makes sense. There've also been critisms that he doesn't understand at all, as is evident by how he writes about the self-harm episodes. They're already triggering enough, making them any more graphic could make the book dangerous for self-harmers who read it. Yes, they're rather...general...but that can be explained by:A) He doesn't self harm himself.B) More details makes them more triggering to self harmers.C) The more specific he gets, the less likely self-harmers who read it will be able to feel understood. Everyone self-harms differently. Hell, just by making her dissociative, half the SI's who read it feel it's BS.D) Self-injurers who're looking for new ways to self-harm probably won't get any out of this book (I know several SI's who do that, so don't dismiss it). The short version, for those who skipped over most of what I wrote above: The book successfully gives the reader a VERY BASIC understanding of cutting. That's all that can be realistically done in a book of it's type. Hopefully people would have the common sense to look into self-injury more after reading it if they know anyone who self-harms. I would strongly recommend it.

As a self-injurer, I am amazed at how well Mr. Levenkron presents the emotions behind the problem. In reading his books on the subject, both this and Cutting, you can tell that he is well-versed on self-mutilation and knows what he is talking about, although definitely more from the professional side than not. I was surprised that more people did not have high praises of this book, when I read it before I started cutting, I truly felt the feelings Katie felt - the sensitivity Mr. Levenkron had when writing about this fictional girl was poignant. When I read it after I started cutting, I learned a little bit more about my problem, and I felt like I had company in what appeared to me to be insanity. I feel like Mr. Levenkron has written an excellent book (one that I have read countless times and still adore) and I would recommend it to anyone, 'cutter' or not. After high school, I hope to become a psychologist, and it is my wish that I can be one as excellent as I feel Steven Levenkron is.

I have read "The Luckiest Girl in the World" at least 5 times. As a social worker, I found his explanation for self-mutilation easy to understand although it is such a complex illness. I have undergone therapy myself and find his style comforting and would like to see more therapists truly interested in their patients. I have read many of the reviews that slammed this book and feel that to each person some books are bad and to others a book is winderful. To me, this is a book that is easy to read, but you learn something from it. I don't believe that it is intended for those with this illness to find a "cure." Keep up the good work Dr. Levenkron.

In my opinion this is an excellent book. The most important part of the book, to me, was the way Katie thought about herself.She kept thinking of herself as stupid, as not being a good person at all. The lines that really sounded so much like my own thinking were: "As soon as people know about you, they run. And that's the way it's always going to be."It was interesting to learn that others think of themselves just like I do; with very strong self-hatred. Over and over in the book I saw how Katie thought of herself and how her thoughts were the same I have every day.I wish more people could get help like Katie did.