Kissing Doorknobs by Terry Spencer Hesser

Tara Sullivan can't explain why she does the things she does. She can't explain why she has to count cracks or line up grains of rice before eating them. She doesn't know why she has to confess every sin or pray every time someone swears. She knows it's weird and that no one else has to do it. Maybe she's crazy. Her parents certainly seem to think so and she can't really argue.

Things get worse and worse until a family friend finally steps in.

Published in 1998, the public was much less aware of OCD so reading this was a little weird. It's not really a novel that focuses on story. It reads more like a fictionalized diary or personal testimony. I suspect the author wrote it as an educational tool, in fact. Window into the Obsessive-Compulsive mind, or some such.

It's only about 150 pages in hardcover so it's a quick read. It's an interesting voice and it definitely conveys the helplessness of dealing with these compulsions. However, it's jarring the way the book assumes that most people are completely unaware of what OCD is.

In a post-Monk world, I think everyone has a passing familiarity with what OCD is. It leaked into our language, and we self apply it when we are being super detail oriented about something. It's lazy language and most people don't fully understand the horror of it, but at least they are aware of it as a thing that happens.

Eh. It's a decent book, but I can't think of who I would recommend it to.