ARC Book Review: OCD Love Story

Author: Corey Ann Haydu

Publication Date: July 23, 2013
Publisher: Simon Pulse

In this raw and relatable romance, Bea learns that some things just can’t be controlled.

When Bea meets Beck, she knows instantly that he’s her kind of crazy. Sweet, strong, kinda-messed-up Beck understands her like no one else can. He makes her feel almost normal. He makes her feel like she could fall in love again.

But despite her feelings for Beck, Bea can’t stop thinking about someone else: a guy who is gorgeous and magnetic... and has no idea Bea even exists. But Bea knows a lot about him. She spends a lot of time watching him. She has a journal full of notes. Some might even say she’s obsessed.

Bea tells herself she’s got it all under control. But this isn’t a choice, it’s a compulsion. The truth is, she’s breaking down...and she might end up breaking her own heart.

Lucky for me, I don’t get panicky in small dark spaces or anything. I’m a different breed of crazy.

 

It reminds me a little of the story “The Princess and the Pea,” that princess atop a pile of wildly different but always thick and luscious mattresses. I want to be that decadent sometimes.

 

How we are little beacons of normal in a room full of crazy.

 

I’m not ready for the I’m Bea and I have OCD moment.

This book is far beyond anything I have ever read. Corey Ann Haydu explores the topic of what it really means to suffer from OCD, instead of it being a topic of conversation that people often joke about. Bea is a girl who suffers from obsessions and compulsions that have resulted in group therapy for her. Her story is different and more powerful than any I have read this year. I foresee this book receiving a lot of criticism, but I think it is raw, emotional, and very real. Bea meets Beck who has some of the same tendencies that she does, but she doesn’t want this relationship to end up like the rest – broken, obsessed, and scarred.

 

Getting inside Bea’s head was the best part of this book. Yes, she has strange tendencies and her mind is usually in hyper-drive, but that is the beauty of her character – she could easily be a real person. Bea has problems with obsessions and compulsions, and honestly I learned more about OCD and the people that carry some form of this diagnosis. To the normal outsider, Bea seems neurotic and unstable. Reading and following someone like Bea made me appreciate the fine art of literature. She is not your average, run-of-the-mill heroine, and she gives the word OCD a new meaning for me; I mean that in the most positive way.

 

This book might just push your boundaries. It might ask you to step outside your comfort zone. It did both of these things for me. Bea and Beck, and all the others that participate in the group therapy session, fight some pretty large battles each and every day. This is not like a cold that stays a few days and then disappears. OCD is real and a fight for people like Bea. There were parts that I just wanted to shut my eyes and brain down. I thought things were weird and I often felt a small little twist of anxiety in my own stomach for Bea. For example, Bea has this habit or compulsion of pinches the inside of her thigh, so much that it leaves a bruise. This disturbed me and I hated to read about her doing it to herself, but for Bea it relieved a little bit of tension and whole lot of anxiety. Small things, and larger things, like this occur all throughout the book.

 

This book was an eye-opening experience that everyone should take!

 

***A copy of this book was provided to me by the publishers at Simon Pulse in exchange for my honest review***