Author: Tamara Ireland Stone
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Thriller
Released: June 16th 2015
Review Source: Disney-Hyperion
If you could read my mind, you wouldn't be smiling.
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.
During a school day, Samantha finds a new friend. Caroline encourages Samantha to be better. To learn to live her life with OCD. It was a nice change for Samantha… being herself. With this little encouragement, she finally decides to follow her psychiatrist’s instructions. To make new friends, to stop worrying so much. With a new friend, Samantha became acquaintance with a secret group of poets. They gather together at a secret room hidden within the school theatre. In this room, words are said with no judgments. Samantha likes this idea. But as she returns the next day, she discover not everyone in the group welcomes her. She along with her friends has hurt one of the members. Although Samantha apologizes, the group thinks she needs to do more than just apologize. As the story moves along, Samantha learns to be honest. She becomes more open about her feeling and this is how she earns the trust of the group.
I usually enjoy reading Contemporary genre with heavy topics. They are full of emotions and I just love sad books. Although I enjoyed the book, I couldn’t get “connected” with Samantha. Though she had this mental issues, at times it felt like she was okay – it was a bit inconsistent. The story is more about Samantha’s discoveries she makes about her life. She learns to treat people the way she wants to treat them and not by ways her friends tells her to. I felt like this was more of a self-discovery book. Maybe because I was reading two books about mental issues and I felt more connected with the other main character? However, I do think many of you will enjoy this novel. The ending was fairly good and the story did have a good twist.
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