Kissing Doorknobs by Terry Spencer Hesser.

This year, I read the book Kissing Doorknobs by Terry Spencer Hesser.  This book mainly focuses on a teen who suffers from an obsessive compulsive disorder and struggles growing up with her strange quirks and rituals.  I really enjoyed reading this book because it gave me a better understanding of the disorder and the amount of stress and anxiety the sufferer feels from their family, friends, as well as themselves, to get better.  What I really found interesting about the main character, Tara, was that her attitude really was to help her family and friends, not torture them.  However, her parents, before Tara’s diagnoses, take all her peculiarities to the head and drive her, as well as themselves, crazy.  In fact, her mom actually believed slapping would cure Tara out of her abnormal habits.  When that proved to be a failure, they decided to go to therapist after therapist after therapist to find a cure. However all, surprisingly, did not diagnose her with OCD, but instead with attention deficit disorder and immaturity.  Towards the end of the book, we finally see someone solve the puzzle to Tara’s “problematic behavior”.  It was her OCD.  Apparently, OCD isn’t a very commonly known disorder; so consequently, most therapists don’t know what to classify symptoms of OCD as.  Ultimately, Tara learned a lot about her disorder and eventually, went to a psychologist to get better. I found this book really interesting and informative.  I really liked how the author had written in first-person to illustrate the mental-battle that Tara had experienced through all this.  I would definitely recommend this book to anyone.  It is an easy read for those who face self-esteem or self-acceptance issues or even for anyone who’d just like to fill up on their OCD knowledge.  --Sairah V. Per 3