By Heidi Ayarbe
Published by Balzer + Bray
Released on May 1st, 2011
Source- ARC received from publisher from blog tour
Today has to be perfect.
Magic.
I look at the clock.
10:14 am.
Ten fourteen. One plus one is two plus four is six plus ten is sixteen minus one is fifteen minus two is thirteen. OK.
I turn from the clock and walk into the hallway. "Ready.”
Saturday will be the third state soccer championship in a row for Jake Martin. Three. A good number. Prime. With Jake on the field, Carson City High can’t lose, because Jake has the magic: a self-created protection generated by his obsession with prime numbers. It’s the magic that has every top soccer university recruiting Jake, the magic that keeps his family safe, and the magic that suppresses his anxiety attacks. But the magic is Jake’s prison, because getting it means his compulsions take over nearly every aspect of his life.
Jake’s convinced the magic will be permanent after Saturday, the perfect day, when every prime has converged. Once the game is over, he won’t have to rely on his sister, Kasey, to concoct excuses for his odd rituals. His dad will stop treating him like he is some freak. Maybe he’ll even make a friend other than Luc.
But what if it doesn’t work?
What if the numbers never go away?
Acclaimed author Heidi Ayarbe has created an honest and riveting portrait of a teen struggling with obsessive compulsive disorder in this courageous and breathtaking novel (quoted from Goodreads).
Compulsion takes reading about characters who suffer from OCD to a whole new level. I felt that I was able to really get a glimpse into the mindset of someone's life who is ruled by their compulsion with numbers. Jake's world is ruled by prime numbers and he's constantly counting. He tries to hide his compulsion, but having a broken family and only one friend it's not hard to do. Keeping his compulsion a secret starts to wear him down, and his biggest focus is helping his team win their upcoming soccer game.
It wasn't hard for me to sympathize with Jake's compulsion. He's a prisoner in his own mind. His life is ruled by numbers and he's addicted to looking at clocks. Things were good if time was on a prime number like 7:31, if it didn't end on a prime number he couldn't look away from the clock until it turned. It's like everything stops until the clock changes. Jake's not the only character who's having to deal with a lot. His mom suffers from OCD, his dad through out much of the book isn't sure how to help her and is unaware of what his son suffers from and his younger sister is often times forced to step into the rule of playing mother. Heidi does a compelling job with bringing to light how OCD can really effect a person and their family.
While Heidi does a fascinating job at really taking the reader into the mind of a character who suffers from a severe case of OCD, I had an extremely hard time getting into the book due to all the language. I don't mind a few words here and there, or a couple mentions of the f-word, but Compulsion has numerous mentions of the word that made it hard for me to really understand the character. I felt it was a little extreme to have the f-word used so much, and it made the character seem unrealistic with how often and how much he uses that word. While I felt Heidi did an amazing job at really making me feel I was able to get into Jake's mindset, I couldn't look past all the language and enjoy the book as much as I was hoping to.
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Tonight, we hosting a live author chat with Heidi to talk about Compulsions. There isn't any spoilers to not discuss, so even if you haven't read the book, please join us as we talk about Jake and what Heidi did to research Jake's compulsions.
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*Thank you and we look forward to chatting with everyone tonight!
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