Every Last Word

As a teen girl who struggles with similar problems, this book made me feel seen.

Every Last Word is not only an extraordinary love story, it is a fascinating point of view into the mind of a girl with OCD. The thoughts that Sam had, the secrets she kept every day from her family and so-called friends, the adjustments she had to make every day of her life were truly a struggle for her, and it was amazing to see her journey through all of it and character development throughout the story. I loved how she slowly started to realize her friends that she thought were her best friends were actually horrible friends to her. Her realization after finding people who understood her and she felt comfortable with was very relatable to real-life high school friendships. Tamara Ireland Stone captured this aspect of high school perfectly with her incredible writing. Stone incorporated heartwarming poetry as well as successfully portraying the life of a girl in high school with OCD. As Sam went through all her emotions and struggles, as a reader you could feel them too. Sam’s wish to be “normal” was so heartfelt and honest that you wanted to just reach in and give her a hug. Especially after the huge plot twist, which is one of my absolute favorite parts of the book. The twist caught me by surprise, I had to put the book down and reevaluate what I just read. However, as well as getting a perspective of a girl with OCD, the readers follow Sam as she falls in love with a boy named AJ. I loved how they started on pretty rocky ground, but they worked through it and created a beautiful relationship from it. He loved her just as she was, even when she wasn’t sure how she felt about herself. If you like books with real-life problems and plot twists, but with romance and happy endings then I highly recommend this book.

Perfect thank you!

The book came undamaged!

I would like to preface this review with the caveat that this is not the kind of book I would normally read. I generally go for fantasy/sci-fi but I read this for a book club I'm in with friends. It's well-written and interesting enough. There's a good twist but I felt like it was short lived. The climax is only a few pages before everything is immediately explained away. While it's dealt with realistically I guess I just felt a little let down by it. Mental illness is dealt with honestly and carefully. I did think the poetry was pretty boring and all the characters wrote poems in the same format/vocabulary. So there definitely could have been some more variety there that would've developed some of the side characters a bit more. While I never felt truly connected to the main character (personal problem, I just didn't relate), she was still a good character and I wanted her to succeed. All in all, a good book, just not what I normally read.

GIFT FOR NIECE, GREAT BOOK.

I loved this book. It's a great perspective of the mind of someone with OCD & a cute love story tied along. I finished it in a week.

5 stars because this really is the first book that kept my interest enough to read in one sitting in years and years. Thank you for letting me join another world with you. There were several things I found odd. I agree with another reviewer that just mentioning one of the poets was African American and not really talking about her again was real weird. Would have preferred if the author didn’t even say a race for her because it was the only time race was mentioned in this book. Just weird. Anther qualm I have is that the main characters seemed to have sex after like 3 dates as high school juniors. Very unrealistic. But as a psychiatrist I do think the portrayal of OCD was great. People with OCD do not often have hallucinations though (spoilers would be needed to elaborate on this). Then there’s just some other nit picky stuff like how the psychiatrist was at times (taking Sam home with her or even driving her in her car) and the blending of a psychiatrist vs psychologists role but I don’t expect people who don’t know the field to know what is appropriate for a psychiatrist or what a psychiatrist even does most of the time (although rarely some psychiatrists do do therapy, it’s not often, and psychiatrists typically have a ton of ethical rules that would have prohibited Sues behavior in the last part of the book).

The plot twist in the middle was a shock i lovedreading it

I found this novel marvellous. It was heartbreaking, funny and sweet. Poetry is important in the book and all of the poems were beautiful. But I gotta warn you. It deals with mental illness, OCD and depression. So if you are not comfortable with that kind of subjects, do not read it. However, even if they are touchy things, Tamara wrote them in a perfect way. I fell completely in love with this book. If you need a different story, you must read Every Last Word of this book.

book is fine, but not wrapped

I've lived with OCD my entire adult life and even after just reading the first chapter, I couldn't believe I finally found a book where the main character is like me! This book is very in depth when talking about topics like Intrusive Thoughts, Skin Scratching and Picking and other 'nastier / scarier' sides of OCD. I think I read the whole book in only a couple of hours, I seriously didn't want to stop reading. Now my Mum wants to read it so she can get a better understanding of things like Intrusive Thoughts so that she can understand me a little bit better. Very, very happy. One of the best books I've read in a LONG time!

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