Luckiest Girl in the World: A young skater battlres her self-destructive impulses

A bright and attractive figure-skating star, Katie Roskova appears to be the luckiest girl in the world. However, the smile she presents to others cannot camouflage the pain she feels inside - panic at the thought of failure, anger at the ambitious mother she seems never able to please, and disappointment in the father who walked out on her when she was a small child. Unable to express her feelings outwardly, Katie internalizes her pain and experiences episodes that she terms "spacing out." There is a way to stop this feeling, what she calls her own private craziness, but it isn't pretty: Katie brings herself back to reality by cutting herself - taking a pair of scissors to her arm until she draws blood. Terrified that her shameful secret will be discovered, she only cuts herself in private and hides her scars beneath long-sleeve shirts. However, as the pressures mount, her self-injurious wounds become more serious - and soon she is no longer able to hide them from others. In this powerful novel, Steven Levenkron demystifies the shocking syndrome of self-mutilation - just as his best-selling The Best Little Girl in the World helped millions to understand anorexia.