The most recommended books about self-harm

I bought this book several years ago, but it was 700 pages long, so it stayed on my shelf until I got tickets for the play in London and decided to read the book first. I was spellbound. The book is disturbing (child abuse, self-harm, suicide attempts) but superbly written.

The author's style reminds me of Donna Tartt. Four young American men of different ethnicities, backgrounds, and sexual orientations meet at high school. The novel starts as a coming-of-age story but follows the characters into middle age and beyond. The author brings New York vibrantly to life. Readers get insights into their friendship and how unintended cruelty almost breaks their bond. All four men struggle with burdens from childhood, but the central character, Jude, who was abandoned as a baby and brought up by monks, has suffered unspeakable horrors.

The darkness is only hinted at in the opening chapters, giving… show more.

Kisscut is the second book in Karen Slaughter’s Grant County series.

Slaughter’s books are dark, and this one is no exception. The darkness is magnified because I think her heroine, Dr. Sarah Linton, is an innocent at heart.

Even though Sarah, a pediatrician, doubles as the Grant County coroner, she tends to see the best in people until the worst appears before her in a way she can’t ignore.

After her ex-husband commits a necessary but appalling act, Sarah discovers a threat to the community’s children which she’s compelled to follow until its unspeakable end is revealed.

The depravity she uncovered haunted me long after I finished the book.

This book of short fiction is a riveting account of how the marginalized outcasts of society struggle to find a voice, often not finding anything other than the realization of their own loneliness and social isolation. Many dynamics are shown in this book, such as a kind of unquenchable desire for new experience, even when it harms us, and the struggle to contend with class, gender, age, and continued sexual hunger. Do we invite troubled persons into our lives if they might harm us, or at least carve profanity into our coffee tables, or do we walk away? I loved this book because each story and character captures what it's like to live on the edge, and this is done without judgment, malice, or any form of indifference. I had so many favorite stories from this collection, just rest assured it is totally worth your time and the money to… show more.

This gripping and heartbreaking YA novel about Lily and her older, bipolar sister, Alice, has stayed with me. I found the plot and characters so realistic and absorbing that I forgot I was reading fiction. 

This book is an intense read, but set in a world I became thoroughly immersed in. I connected with Lily’s compulsion to be the perfect daughter and straight-A student. I cried for her having to swallow her emotions and words, while internally struggling with her own demons.

It’s a must-read for anyone who has survived their teenage years. It’s considered, wholehearted, and delivers a convincing portrayal of sisterly bonds, mental health issues, and the people who are courageous enough to confront them. I’m teary now just thinking about it.

Not many novellas punch their weight this hard as Matthew R. Davis’ The Dark Matter of Natasha. Addressing almost with levity matters of suicide, this tiny book is entrapping with the disquieting dread yet morbid curiosity it rouses in you. It’s an intelligent story oozing with the sexual urgency of young adulthood. An orgasmic psychological thriller amalgamated with deep haunting, The Dark Matter of Natasha is a compelling conversation on the topic of teen self-harm. Macabre, intimate and beautiful all at once. 

Sadly, when asked about the artist, most people describe Vincent as the man who chopped off his own ear. I hate that they do.

This book though is neither gratuitous nor indulgent. Instead, it offers a detailed, well-researched, and intelligent response to the question - Why did Van Gogh cut off his ear? There has been much speculation about the events that led to Vincent delivering his ear to a maid at a brothel in Arles.

This book is essential reading for any who wishes to open conversations about Vincent’s motivations and the happenings that led to that gruesome act on a specific day in December.

This is not your average haunted house story––not by a long shot.

This abandoned house is alive and salivates, built with wood, bricks, hatred, and soaked in murder throughout the ages. Three women went in, but only two returned, both remembering a completely different set of details of victimization by the other. Three years later, the house calls them back to finish what it started.

Rumfitt’s writing style at times reads like a fever dream, she even describes one event simultaneously from two different perceptions. Its subject matter is not for everyone; it highlights the darkest parts of fascist-born damage, PTSD, self-harm, and internalized shame. It’s dirty, it’s gory, and it’s fantastic. 

Many books have kissing in the forest, but how many are about kissing the forest itself?

Fenton has watched countless hunters enter his forest to claim a wish by killing the white-tailed stag. Each hunter has taken: a sip from the stream, a flower from the vine, wood to light a fire. Each hunter has subsequently died.

Prior is different; he takes nothing, instead asking for a god’s assistance in waking his sister from her sleeping sickness. Fenton—who is the forest and the white-tailed stag and a son of Old Nan and also, definitely, a god—decides to pack up the forest and help Prior out.

Where I come from, that sort of thing will get you a little kiss or two at the very least.

Having enjoyed Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series, and again finding a horse on the cover, I remember picking up this story at Waldenbooks. (Oh look, I’ve dated myself again!). In this case, the book requires a content warning for mental health issues and self-harm, but the heroine struck a note with me, and when she befriends a telepathic horse and goes on adventures, I was hooked. 

Willow is such an important novel for any teen who has gone through a traumatic event.

Willow, a 17-year-old girl is dealing with grief over the death of her parents and the fact that she was driving the car that killed them. She’s had to leave behind her old home, friends, and school. But Willow has found a way to survive, to numb the new reality of her life, she is secretly cutting herself.

For every teen that has either cut themselves, drank to numb the pain, starved themselves, or done any sort of self-harm in order to protect themselves from their inward pain, this book is for you. Not only is this story about grief and guilt, but it is also about love and never giving up.