Cuts Like A Knife

“Tara Dublin has that rarest of skills: she knows how to tell a story with startlingly funny and soulful elegance. Get lost in her world, and her wonderful writing voice. You won’t want to leave that world, and you shouldn’t.” –Cameron Crowe, Oscar-winning director and screenwriter
“Cuts Like a Knife is a misleading title. This one lands like a hammer blow.” –Patton Oswalt, actor, writer, and Grammy-nominated comedian


It’s 1985, and fourteen-year-old Viola Pfeifferbaum is entering her freshman year at Brendan Byrne High School in Hazeldeen, New Jersey. Slightly overweight, self-deprecatingly sarcastic, and a bonafide music fanatic, Viola has never quite fit in. A victim of the “Mean Girls” throughout middle school, she’s hoping this new school will bring her the chance at changing that. She’s off to a great start when she lands a major role in the school’s fall musical and somehow manages to snare her dream guy, Christian Parker. However, she remains in the grip of her best ‘frenemy’, Deirdre, who’s been manipulating her from their first encounter in kindergarten. While trying to navigate this new world, Viola is shocked when a family friend is killed, and things only get worse when her classmates start turning up dead on school property. When the killer strikes all too close to home, Viola has to rely on her own wits (and knowledge of horror films) to save herself from being the next victim.