The Luckiest Girl in the World : A Young Skater Battles Her Self-Destructive Impulses [Paperback]

Steven Levenkron (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1998

Just looking at Katie Roskova, you'd think she had it all: she was pretty, popular, an A-student at an exclusive private school, and on her way to becoming a champion figure skater. But there was another Katie--the one she hid from the world--who was having trouble dealing with the mounting pressures of her young life. And it was this Katie who, with no other means of expression available to her, reacted to her overbearing mother, her absent father, her unforgiving schedule, and her oblivious classmates by turning her self-doubt into self-hatred. And into self-mutilation. In his previous novel, The Best Little Girl in the World, Steven Levenkron brought insight, expertise, and sensitivity to the painful subject of anorexia nervosa. Now he applies these same talents to demystifying a condition that is just as heartbreaking, and becoming more common everyday. Through his depiction of Katie's self-mutilating behavior--she is called "a cutter" by her peers--and her triumphant road to recovery, he offers a compelling profile of a young girl in trouble, and much-needed hope to the growing numbers who suffer from this shocking syndrome.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Fifteen-year-old figure skater and private-school scholarship student Katie Roskova has no time for friends. Her self-sacrificing mother makes sure of that. In public, Katie wears a megawatt smile meant to fool everyone, but she hides a dark secret. Sometimes she "spaces out" and cuts herself, which seems to lower her stress. One day after repeatedly banging her head into the wall following a difficult skating session, Katie is whisked away to the hospital and ordered into therapy. Much as Katie resists the help of therapist Sandy Sherman, he becomes a source of hope. Psychotherapist Levenkron, who dealt with anorexia in The Best Little Girl in the World (1978), offers no neat, tidy ending, but Katie makes progress. Despite its resemblance to a YA "problem novel," this work offers psychological insights that run deep. Levenkron has taken a timely issue threatening many adolescents today and successfully created a sympathetic and suspenseful story.?Keddy Ann Outlaw, Harris Cty. P.L., Houston
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Like his first novel Best Little Girl in the World (1989), about a teenager with anorexia, this one, written mostly with YAs in mind, also brings to light a devastating problem among young people. Pretty, smart, and a talented ice-skater, 15-year-old Katie Roskova seems to have a lot going for her. In fact, her public face and her private one are vastly different. She's actually a frightened, insecure, lonely child, who depends on self-mutilation (she cuts herself with a scissors or a knife until she bleeds) to stay grounded in the pressure cooker she knows as her "real world." There's not much subtlety in either characterization (the humane psychiatrist, the horrible mother, the supportive therapy group) or plot. But Levenkron evokes the magical thinking, the loss of control, and the other psychological particulars associated with self-mutilation so adeptly that readers can't help but be drawn into Katie's bizarre, frightening world. The girl's struggle to regain control won't be easy to forget. Stephanie Zvirin --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 188 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (March 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140266259
• ISBN-13: 978-0140266252
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #767,040 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the luckiest girl in the world....., February 26, 2006

By 

kari cox - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Luckiest Girl in the World : A Young Skater Battles Her Self-Destructive Impulses (Paperback)

Katie Roskova is a preteen ice skater striving to be a champion. She attends a private school where she keeps up her popularity, her 3.5 G.P.A, and most importantly, her smile. Along with her hectic schedule, each day Katie also shelters a secret. This secret is the only thing that keeps her sane when she begins to lose sight of her goals and her grip on reality, what she calls `spacing out'. She knows that is anyone ever finds out about her secret, she will be thought of as a monster. So she hides her secret, just as she hides the pair of scissors that are now lying in her bag protected by a clean white washcloth. The same pair that, previously that day, slid down her wrists, her elbows, her thighs, anywhere she could easily hide away. She would be tagged as a 'cutter' if anyone bothers to pay attention, but nobody expects it. Katie hides her secret well and always has, but the one-day she slips her English teacher starts to suspect the pretty little skater girl. Katie begins to lose control and her world, as she knows it, begins to spin quickly out of control. She is then challenged with keeping up her championship dreams, not disappointing her mother or her counselor, Sandy, and keeping her `condition' under control.
Steven Levenkron, the author of The Luckiest Girl in the World, does a respectable job portraying self-mutilation, which is a rising issue that is threatening teens and adolescents more and more each day. He, in my opinion, takes things a step farther. Instead of writing about what people commonly think `cutters' are, which is reclusive, depressed, and lacking friends, he writes about the truth. How self-mutilation touches the lives of everyone including the people like Katie, who you think are too wonderful to believe that they could ever be involved in something of that stature.
The Luckiest Girl in the World is an exceptionally written novel that can be enjoyed by everyone. It is inspirational, compassionate, and tells you the truth about what people are going through when they turn to self-mutilation. People like Katie, who think that they are not the `cutting' type and are confused by what they do, can read this novel and regain their hope. It tells `cutters' that they are not alone and people will not completely hate them for what they do. It also shows people who are not `cutters' what it feels like to be in that kind of situation, in full force. I can say that this novel is an ultimate piece of salvation.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars superficial and short on facts, May 23, 2001

By 

Deb Martinson (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Luckiest Girl in the World : A Young Skater Battles Her Self-Destructive Impulses (Paperback)

Levenkron takes an incredibly complex subject and turns it into a movie of the week. He's got his facts wrong -- the type of repetitive/compulsive self-injury he depicts is not related to psychosis at all. It's obvious that the all-wise, all-loving incredibly perceptive white-haired male psychotherapist is meant to be him, and the school counselor he uses as contrast is a cartoonish bad guy. The reader never really gets a good idea of what's going on, why the girl cuts, or why she stops.

Most self-harm is about coping, not psychosis -- people who never learned good ways to handle overwhelming feelings (or lack of feeling/dissociation) sometimes turn to physical self-harm as a way of reducing physiological arousal and getting back to a noramal state for them. Levenkron doesn't address this at all. In the five years I've been running a self-harm support email list, the dozens and dozens of people I've seen stop hurting themselves have achieved it by learning to look at their feelings and actively choosing another way (besides self-harm) to cope. Some had therapists to guide them. All of them did a lot of really hard work to relearn coping. The magical-therapist assumption doesn't validate that or even take it into account.

It's not the absolute worst possible book on this subject, but I'd've expected better.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Sickeningly simplistic, May 28, 2002

By 

Claire Hennessy (Dublin, Ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The LUCKIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD: A Novel (Hardcover)

As in his previous work of fiction, The Best Little Girl In The World, Levenkron explains a disorder away with family problems, in this case a father who left and a mother who physically abused her child in order to "encourage" her. This girl is conveniently surrounded by people who care about her, in particular "Sandy Sherman", the ever-so-wonderful psychologist (featured previously in The Best Little Girl...) who jots down notes about her progress, letting the reader know how well our Katie is coming along. It simplifies a complex disorder into "family problems and too much pressure make little girls want to cut themselves". Levenkron, in the guise of Sandy Sherman, explains that Katie has a personality disorder which triggers her moments of "spacing out", something which is *not* common to self-injurers and should not be used to explain it. A final word of warning to anyone who hurts themselves, or has recently stopped - this book is *extremely* triggering, and should be avoided.