Every Scar Has a Story by Sarah Mazucci.

Marla Banks is an attractive girl living in New York yet there is lots of sadness in her life and she self-harms as a way to cope. This novella is about abusive relationships, depression, self-harm and suicide. Sarah starts her book with a plea to readers suffering from abuse, depression or self-harm to seek help.

Sarah ticks all the boxes in a tale highlighting the issues and pressures that lead to Marla being a cutter. Sarah’s writing style is very incident report and comes across like a teenage blogger with boyfriend problems. She is unable to describe the cutting experience with the precision and style I enjoyed in The Cutting Club by April Thomson. However the tale moves on from troubles at home, to troubles at work, to boyfriend trouble before Marla seeks help from a therapist. I will not spoil it by saying what happens next! There are lots of high’s and low’s as Marla gets on with her life.

Sarah uses her novella as a vehicle for vulnerable readers to get help. I can imagine it is a book that teenage girls will find it very easy to relate to. Mature readers however will find this book an okay read with many typos along the way - fancy getting the names wrong at a wedding! There is no bite to the script and it does come across as rather bland. It is not a dynamic story and it is rather predictable. It does not cover new ground and is about as interesting as reading last week’s news. This is tame reading that does not get exciting and is not a thrilling read.

Sarah’s writing quality is poor, she is not a great story-teller or novelist. You will not be on the edge of your seat and her book is not a page-turner. For an entertaining read relaxing at home, Sarah brings nothing to the game. I hope that Sarah’s aim was to encourage vulnerable readers to seek help rather than to be a successful author. Every Scar Has a Story is an okay read that I will vote the middle score of 3 stars and Oh! Sarah, don’t give up the day job lass.

Every Scar Has a Story is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook and was written in 2014.