Friday, May 29, 2015

For Your TBR Pile - Every Last Word

Every Last Word
By Tamara Ireland Stone
Published: June 16, Disney Hyperion

From GoodReads: Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. 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. 

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. Yet Sam knows she'd be truly crazy to leave the protection of the most popular girls in school. 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.

Caroline 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. 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. Slowly, she begins to feel more "normal" than she ever has as part of the popular crowd . . . until she finds a new reason to question her sanity and all she holds dear.


Thank you NetGalley and Disney Hyperion for the eARC!

My Thoughts:

Every Last Word cracks open the life of a teenager living with a very specific type of OCD. As Samantha tries to hide her condition from her friends, she wanders into a secret poetry club that meets in a hidden room underneath the school stage.

I enjoyed this book, and feel Stone portrayed the main character in a positive light--as a girl seeking help and actively attending therapy to find new coping mechanisms and make decisions about her relationships. When Sam attends Poet's Corner, a group of misfit characters with deep, emotional issues, they are able to vent their frustrations and share their fears with each other through their songs and poems.

Not only was the writing creative and fun, but the story's pacing was quick and plot twisted in all the right places. Not an issue book in the least, Every Last Word explores common teenage fears of being socially accepted and navigating toxic friendships. 

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