BLEED

So, I had a few hours before leaving New Orleans and coming back home (for 2 days) and picked up the galley for BLEED by Laurie Faria Stolarz (Hyperion). This interconnecting series of stories features an odd assortment of characters whose live intersect at various points. Maria is a cutter. Kelly is arranging to meet a pen pal, a former prisoner who was convicted of murdering his girlfriend. Nicole flirts with Kelly's boyfriend. Joy hopes to find love herself as she waits tables. The stories cover only one day in the lives of thee teens. Most stories are told from the girls' points of view. However, there are a few male voices as well. The title refers to how these various characters are somehow united by blood. There is the blood from Maria's self mutilation and the blood from the rock that Robby uses to kill his girlfriend. However, not all the blood is gore. Some of it represents lost innocence and some of it has more to do with matters of the heart than the body.