ashleyholstrom's Reviews (1.38k)

An excellent collection of essays by a group of diverse people who all have one thing in common. Their stories all follow the same timeline: No recollection of the first pull, growing up shamefully hiding their heads/eyelids/eyebrows, finding out they’re not alone, finding peace and acceptance with the disorder.

As with any essay collection, some really spoke to me. Not only because they were so relatable, but because some really strong and powerful people suffer from this thing, too. It’s almost like a collection of secret friends.

Part of A Trichy Pull-List: Best Books on Compulsive Hair-Pulling at Book Riot.

A feel-good (ok, feel-bad but then feel-good because of the solidarity) book with tidbits like this one in her imagined speech at her alma mater’s graduation ceremony: “Nobody is telling you what to do anymore — you are your own teacher, your own boss, your own captain. You have to constantly push yourself to get better, or else you will get stuck.”

Part of a review roundup at Crooked Prose.

This book is beautifully written, but a very reckless look at mental illness. I am angry. And sad.

This book is so crazy and so good and I need some anti-anxiety meds and/or an inhaler to deal with waiting for the next book.

Help. I'm having feelings.

I'm grappling with how to feel about this book. Part of me knows that my high school self would have devoured it, but my today self spent a lot of time rolling her eyes at it.

It has lots of my hot plots for books: Boarding school! Angsty high schoolers! Using classic literature as a catalyst for self-discovery! High emotions and tension! These are enough to get me to forego sleep in order to read.

But some moments were a little spotty. The story moved along wonderfully at parts, but then slowed down or skipped ahead a little jarringly.

Jam's delusions make a mockery of real pain and destruction in peoples' lives. To compare this nonsensical story she told herself to the real trauma of her classmates' is a bit sickening. I wish she'd felt a little more remorse after hearing the stories of her peers, and for being placed in the same group as them.

And yet, I wanted to keep reading after it ended. And I want to find out what it was like for students in years past. And I want more backstory from the teacher's life. Sigh.