Review: Scars

[Nicole Priester]

"Scars" by Cheryl Rainfield is about a young girl Kendra, who is REALLY going through a lot of stuff in her life as a young teenager.She is an artist, but her mother thinks her art sucks and will never sell, and criticizes her a lot in her art style. She is also in therapy due to the fact that she was molested for what she believes to have started early in her childhood, but she can not figure out who molested her even though she was molested a lot. On top of being a victim of abuse, she is hiding two secrets. The first secret she is hiding is that she cuts her self a lot. The second secret she hides from her parents and that is that she is a lesbian, since her mom is homophobic in many ways despite having a gay friend. She also hid it from most of her classmates too for a long time, but rumors began about her and her ex. A lot of things start to go wrong for Kendra, making her life a lot more complicated and on top of it, she is being stalked by her molester who is hoping to keep her quiet. Things get crazy, but to give a way the end would ruin this powerful and moving book so I wont.

This book is definitely directed at YA readers. The parents are present, but are not very supportive in many ways. She does have her therapist who she does depend on a lot, but she is not physically present in the story often and same thing with her good friend Sandy, who she met through her mother and is also gay and understands a lot of the difficulties that Kendra is going through. He constantly wishes he could protect her. Therefore, adults are not really present often that fits into this criteria. Kendra is also going though a lot of issues: molestation after effects, cutting, loneliness, being gay and coming out to your parents and much more. The reader also goes through a wide variety of emotions reading this book. There is not a lot of diversity in this story besides gay and straight characters.

Here is a website on information about cutting. In the back of the book there is also a lot of resources and reachout programs for those who cut or for those who know someone who cuts themselves. http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/mental_health/cutting.html
http://www.cherylrainfield.com/cherylPage_Scars.html this is to her website that gives the viewer an overview of the book along with what others are saying about the book and a video clip.

I really liked this book a lot. I knew a lot of people that cut, and totally saw these people in Kendra's character. I also must admit that I wanted to know who molested her and cheated and went to the end to find out. Luckily, it did not take away from the book at all. I also really enjoyed that in the back of the book, there was a note from the author Cheryl Rainfield; where she talks about her abuse as a child. It really solidified her story, more than other books I have read on this subject. I however, would not teach this book in a classroom, nor do I think schools would a lot it, because this book in particular, explores some very touchy subjects. I would definitely have this in my classroom as a book students could read if they wanted to, I would probably also recommend it to students that I thought would enjoy or gain something from it.