I feel like my OCD does make me a better person, in some ways. Most often, if people ask, I just laugh it off, because honestly, I don't care. 'Why can't you just use another machine?' It doesn't work like that. Certain things, minor to others, will ruin my day. I do not get major panic attacks over them, but at the same time, things just feel wrong. When I can't do this or that at a certain time. When I don't get a certain machine at the gym. When something falls out of pattern in my day. Like the main character in this book, I have survived on very little sleep for a very, very long time. It takes me 2 hours to fall asleep every night because I can't be at rest. My mind is constantly racing at hyperspeed.

I don't obsessively count things, I don't get massive panic attacks, I don't get major anxiety attacks, but I know what it feels like to have your own mind turn on you at times. I have OCPD (obsessive-compulsive personality disorder). I know very well it doesn't work that way because I've got it.

It is unrealistic, it is a Disney-fied version of real life, complete with a happy ending. It's the equivalent of ordering a black coffee at Starbucks, taking a sip, only to find out that you've been given a caramel mocha instead. This book is a saccharine sweet fairy tale version of a very real mental illness, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), as well as the very serious issue of bullying, without true emotional depth. until she finds a new reason to question her sanity and all she holds dear. Slowly, she begins to feel more 'normal' than she ever has as part of the popular crowd. Sam is drawn to them immediately, especially a guitar-playing guy with a talent for verse, and starts to discover a whole new side of herself. So when Sam meets Caroline, she has to keep her new friend with a refreshing sense of humor and no style a secret, right up there with Sam's weekly visits to her psychiatrist.Ĭaroline introduces Sam to Poet's Corner, a hidden room and a tight-knit group of misfits who have been ignored by the school at large. Yet Sam knows she'd be truly crazy to leave the protection of the most popular girls in school. Second-guessing every move, thought, and word makes daily life a struggle, and it doesn't help that her lifelong friends will turn toxic at the first sign of a wrong outfit, wrong lunch, or wrong crush. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has Purely-Obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can't turn off. Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. If you could read my mind, you wouldn't be smiling.

Every last word book