The book's main weakness is its tendency to stereotype, for exampleEmily is bullied and exam stress and a difficult family life arefeatured. These things do cause stress and can lead people to self-harm,but a lot of other things do too.
However, the book has a lot of good qualities, such as Emily's strategyfor how she should behave around her friends. Disassociation is alsoexplored. Emily cuts herself off from life as a way of escapingdifficult emotions. Her experience of depression is shown well throughher negative experiences of events such as Christmas and herbirthday.
The escalation of her self-harm is realistic. For people who don'tself-harm the concept of physical pain reducing emotional pain can bedifficult to grasp, but the author conveys this well. The contact withprofessionals and the hospital are also realistic, especially the childand adolescent mental health waiting list.
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