Seeing Red

Cutting Edge

by Peter Lancett

Tom Hathaway leads a pretty comfortable life. He’s only ever seen at school wearing Prada, Ralph Lauren or Gianfranco Ferre. Because then he’s a different person, defined by the cut and the cloth. Cool and confident. That’s how it is when your parents have money and you have style. But then he meets Sylvia—the other girl he really fancies—and discovers a darker underside.

Cutting Edge is a new fiction series for teenagers and young adults, dealing with difficult issues and situations. The books are fast-paced quick reads, focusing on aspects of the tougher side of life, a side of life many of the readers will have experienced and can identify with. Issues covered in the first five books in the series self-harm, incest, suicide, and gay sexuality.

Genres: Young Adult, Realistic Fiction

221 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2008

About the author

Author, Editor and Film maker

Grew up in Stoke-on-Trent, England
Lived in London for 12 years
Lived in New Zealand for 6 years and later for 5 years
Currently living and working in England.

As a writer, I am the creator and author of the award winning Dark Man series of books, author of the novels Seeing Red, Gun Dog and Hanging in the Mist for the "Cutting Edge" series, published by Ransom Publishing (I was also the series editor), The Shadowmasters (Parts One and Two) and The Iron Maiden.

I also wrote and directed The Xlitherman, a feature film set in England, and have worked extensively for US-based producers on script and concept development for film and television, including the writing of pilot scripts for projects starring Ron Perlman (Sons of Anarchy, Beauty and the Beast, Hand of God), Oscar nominee Bruce Davidson, and Golden Globe nominee Lainie Kazan.

My latest work, in conjunction with co-author Teresa Schaeffer, is THE RAVENMOCKER, a disturbing novel of psychological horror, based on our feature film script of the same name.
January, 2016

Reviews

[Grace Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book kinda bored me i suppose :( everthing was going pretty much ok in the 1st few pages...... until he completely acts like a pedophile!!! in a way he reminded me of an alien, he wasn't ever too sure of his surroundings and he wore a suit to school, i mean what was that all about?! the book ended far to suddenly for me, because we never found out what happens to madelines baby and why she was covered in blood, and who did tom see sylvia with?! she's a bit of a shadow rather than a character, we hardly know anything about her when you think about!!!!!! there wasn't really much to learn from this book apart from dont cut yourself! lol XD

[Phia Schiele · Rating 1 out of 5]

The repeated use of the r slur thew me off. I definitely felt you could tell that this man has not interacted with woman that much. I personally hate the she is so different from other girls because she is intelligent and well rounded troupe. If you interacted with woman you know that many are intelligent and well rounded and it’s not rare. Besides that I felt I was missing the point of this book as a whole, I couldn’t tell exactly what the message was, maybe like don’t be influenced by the people around you?

[Marlee E. · Rating 1 out of 5]

what the hell was the solution. genuinely. i thought this was a vampire novel and i finished it in 4 hours because i got myself into a cycle of hate-reading. edgelord slop genuinely this is a fever dream

[Rebecca · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was just bad in every way. There was no redemption in the technical writing at all. For one thing, it was extremely repetitive--I can't even count how many times the word 'lovely' came up in the novel. Also, if Lancett was trying to make the character not sound gay, he did a miserably job of it. The male protagonist enjoys helping people paint their nails...I dare you to find one straight guy who feels the same way. I'm not saying that it's bad to have an offbeat character, but their quirks have to be believable. Tom was annoying and self-centered and I didn't buy his 'magically' starting to cut once he saw Sylvia do it. If the character was depressed to begin with, I didn't pick up on it. The only thing I got from Tom was that he was a narcissistic, effeminate jerk who probably deserved his lot. Also, *Sylvia* come on who doesn't see the Plath reference there? She comes from an abusive home, but Lancett does a horrible job of explaining this. Her reasons for why she cuts: "I'm bored, I'm stressed out." Seriously? Both the characters were whiny and underdeveloped. Don't waste your time with this book. If I weren't a fast reader I would have probably ripped the darn thing in half and called it quits.

[Lesly Florentino]

Tom Hathaway, a sort of rich and independent teenage guy. He’s the main character in “Seeing Red”. He’s growing up in a wealthy neighborhood close by his “best friend”. They were close until Tom said something to Eddie the he didn’t like. Getting into a fight with your best friend is not the best thing that can happen. Everything from there went downhill until he met Silvia. He thought his world was all better until he got a bit too obsessed.
Life just wasn’t working for him because while that was happening at school, at home his parents wouldn’t show any love to him or his sister which they very much needed. His older sister was having a very serious crisis that no one knew about … but him.
This is a good and valuable book. Valuable as a lesson. For me it was hard to put it down. It will always keep you trying to guess what’s going to happen next. The way it had the description was good. I also liked the way he was literally talking to us. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes mystery and drama.

[Julia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some books can be really awful. They really can. This book sounded good in premise, particularly as a story of self-cutting where ther person doing it is a guy. However, I simply couldn't get past the excessively repetitive phrasing to care at all about this character. Also, it takes over half the book to get to the part where he's cutting himself. I can't imagine a teen reader lasting this long. I almost threw it away before finishing & I can count on my fingers and toes the number of times I've done that in my entire life. The reluctant readers this book is trying to appeal to seem unlikely to get past the first chapter thanks to the obnoxiously self centered & unstable main character, his vaguely creepy relationships with his sister & mom & even more that made me just say blech! to the whole thing. Don't bother.

[Mariesa]

This book really didn't make any sense. There were elements that were mixed together and I wasn't really too sure what to make of it. The first chapter is essentially irrelevant to the rest of the novel. The characters are static. The plot was strangely, if at all, developed. Throwing things in there randomly like the pregnancy made no sense. I wouldn't suggest it. If the self harm element reeled you in, there's a grand total of four pages "discussing" it. If the romance element is what you wanted, you can forget that.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. It kept me on the edge at all times I loved the romance, the deceipt, the shame, the dissapointment and the message given in this story. I really agreed with Sylvia's descpription of cutting. It can seem so inviting and comforting, but really you don't want people to see your scars and judge you- much less be responsible because someone started cutting. Still, I'd reccomend this to anyone looking for a good read.
-Sarah

[Gillian · Rating 2 out of 5]

YA -- Cutting Edge -- Saddleback

While I think this book is geared toward boys, I don't think that it will be successful. The narrator is too far out of their sphere with his specific fashion references. I was also uncomfortable with how the book dealt with cutting. It seemed too facile. And the ending seemed too Catcher to be realistic. I think there is much more that could have been mined here.

[Emma Linn · Rating 2 out of 5]

The idea of this book sounded really great, but it was pretty far from that. It was poorly written, repetitive and dull and the characters (minus Sylvia) all seemed bland. Sylvia was alright, mostly because she just seemed the most easy to identify with. Everyone else was just boring IMO. The entire book was a struggle to get through. It was unintresting and took far too long to get to the point of things.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poorly written, although I did feel bad for Tom's situation.

[Jasper · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far the book is turning out to be a good story, even with the use of hurtful it gets my attention and making the other readers gets curious of the book.