Why did I pass up Girl In Pieces? After this and her terrific You’d Be Home Now, Kathleen Glasgow is an author that will I think always be on my radar. She should be on yours too if she isn’t already.
The Glass Girl’s title character is a teenager named Bella. She just recently got dumped by her boyfriend Dylan, and apparently one of the reasons was she drank too much. And this breakup has skyrocketed her problem, not fixed it. She has a waitress job, and it’s not going so well. Her grades are dipping. Her friends and her little sister are saying she has a bad attitude. Her grandmother, who she calls Laurel, recently passed away, and she was the one who kind of first suggested a little drink with her granddaughter, if you can believe it. Her parents are divorced, and she and her sister are going back and forth.
One day at a party, she collapses from alcohol poisoning and is brought to the hospital, where she is blackmailed into a rehab centre. Where she has to get through a program for an entire month to try to get better and get back her self-worth.
I never got into drinking. Thank goodness most kids and preteens don’t like the smell or taste. And as a child, whenever I had to accompany my parents into an LCBO, I was astounded by how much the wine and whiskey cost (thankfully everyone in my family controls their alcohol intake more than fine). Because of the high price and horror stories I’ve heard – hangovers, being out of control, etc., I’m proudly sober. The only thing I use alcohol for is occasional cooking, and by the time we start serving, it’s all burnt off anyway. But anyway, I am still a fan of addiction stories. I know life is hard for so many people. Stands to reason most of us are looking for a way to soothe ourselves when we’re not doing well. Stories about being addicted to something dangerous tend to be some of the most human-themed stories you can go for. And The Glass Girl manages to deliver.
In the buildup to going to rehab, we sympathize with Bella as much as we are frustrated with her. When a disaster happens at school, I couldn’t help but think back to when I felt like that could happen to me. And some of the programs at the centre feel like overkill to Bella and to me. But like Bella, I overtime got to understand how they functioned, and I appreciated how the workers were, even if sometimes strict, definitely caring towards their patients.
The book is also really good at recognizing how deep some addictions run. A surprising amount of the other patients we get to know don’t make it to their goals, and relapse. And some people we thought were good aren’t really good at all. It can honestly get quite sad, which is actually a positive for me. Sometimes we do everything right to make a friend, and that friend doesn’t end up actually caring, or will be fine with screwing you over. The Glass Girl is a look into the lives and feelings of those who have significant problems, some of which don’t want to give their ways of life up, even if they are clearly dangerous. It’s a sobering view, if you will, of broken lives and finding something to make you truly happy.
My rating: 4 stars out of 5
William J. McGinn 
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