A wonderful debut novel from Toni Jordan about Grace Vandenburg, a 35 year old lady finding love while also suffering from OCD. From an early age Grace has ‘counted’, she counts everything; the bristles on her toothbrush, the distance between her house and school or the local café, the number of items she has to buy from the supermarket and how she eats. Her daily life is determined by the routine her counting has imposed on her and into this comes Seamus, someone she falls in love with. But who or what will win out in the end? Seamus or her Counting?
A light romantic comedy, told from Grace’s point of view, the characters are very believable as we find out what first started her counting and her attempt to try and stop with Seamus’ help. There are some wonderful touches in this book including Grace’s obsession with Nikola Tesla an inventor from the turn of the century and her relationship with her family and nieces. The pace to the book is very quick and interspersed with some funny observations from Grace herself about her situation that stops the story from being melancholy about a very serious illness that has cost her her job and past relationships.
Ultimately a funny insight into what is obviously a very serious subject told in a believable fashion, I would recommend this book to fans of romantic comedies. ( )

I read this book straight through. It was a bit chick-lit, but it actually had some meaning behind it so I was prepared to overlook the chick-lit aspect. (I probably would have done away with the last two chapters, but, hey, if it's chick lit, they had to be there.) It was a pretty good (and funny) analysis of someone with a particularly unusual OCD. ( )

This book is billed as a "comedy that counts" on the cover. I agree it is very funny in places, and Grace is a great character. However, it's also a sad book, when you consider Grace's OCD. In this case, the problem is counting. Grace counts everything, for instance the number of poppy seeds on her orange cake dictates how many bites she will need to divide the cake into before she eats it.

When she meets Seamus she finds somebody who accepts her and her quirks, but he wants to help her and suggests therapy. There follows a time when she is taking anti-depressants, which suppress the counting, but change Grace's whole character. Eventually Grace realises that she just wants to be herself, and that counting is part of that.

I really felt for Grace, and could understand her behaviour to a certain extent. Many of us, myself included, have some level of OCD, and I sympathised totally with Grace's situation and feelings. She found it debilitating but it was so much a part of her life that she didn't really want to change. It was a question of finding a way of making it fit in with the rest of her life.

Built into the story were details about Nikola Tesla, the man who discovered electricity, and who Grace adores. I enjoyed the facts that were thrown in about Tesla and thought he sounded like a very intriguing man.

Toni Jordan has written a bittersweet book about a character finding herself and realising that she should make every second count. An excellent read that comes highly recommended. ( )

Grace Vandenburg counts everything. From the amount of steps it takes her to walk between any two given places, to the amount of letters in people's names, even to the amount of bristles in her toothbrush. She likes to buy things - even such things as bottles of shampoo and boxes of washing powder in sets of 10.

Grace has chronic Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which has cost her the teaching job she loved, and robbed of any semblence of a social life. The only people she feels able to connect to at all are her niece Hilary (who Grace calls Larry) and Nikola Tesla the long dead inventor who discovered electricity). She doesn't see herself as a victim though, because Grace believes that numbers bring order to a chaotic world.

When Grace meets Seamus O'Reilly, her life is turned upside down. Seamus doesn't count things, and he thinks that Grace would be better if she didn't either. And Grace finds herself having to decide between her safe routines dictated by her counting, or a journey into the unknown with Seamus.

I enjoyed this book very much. It is narrated by Grace herself, and it was refreshing that despite her condition, Grace came across as a sassy, smart and sharp person with a quick wit, and it was easy to like her. I also adored the character of Larry, Grace's niece, who, like Grace, is sharp and sassy, but doesn't thankfully doesn't suffer with OCD.

The way that Grace's condition is portrayed is excellent, and shows how OCD (however it manifests itself) can be debilitating and can keep someone in a virtual prison. I actually think this would be an excellent book to read for anyone who was looking to learn more about the condition.

I was also surprisingly fascinated by the parts of about Nikola Tesla, Grace's hero, whose life she describes in scattered parts throughout the narrative.

It is a very quick read (certainly snappy enough to be read in one sitting) and a thoroughly enjoyable one. However, I do have mixed feelings about the ending. I won't reveal what happens, but I am not sure whether I liked it or not. Overall though, this is definitely a book I would recommend. ( )

An unconventional love story, Grace has a form of OCD that makes her count everything and ritualise her life in numbers. This makes doing anything out of the ordinary worrying, and Grace is no longer able to work as a teacher. She lives on her own in a small flat and a set routine for her daily life and limited contact with the rest of her family. The only real escape from this is in her fantasies of her hero - the maverick Szerbian scientist Nikola Tesla - also a counter, and the genius who invented radio and AC electricity.

Then one day at the supermarket Grace fills her basket with all the usual items, but when she gets near the checkout she finds she is one banana short! A nice looking man close by has some, so she contrives to take one from his basket - he won't notice will he? Fortunately for her, he does and his name is Seamus. He is intrigued by this woman, asks her out and thus begins the central romance of the story.

Over the book's chapters, one for each letter in Grace's full name, the author teases out Grace and Seamus's relationship, as Seamus does to Grace's family history, to try and find out the triggers for her counting. Grace is besotted and surrenders herself to Seamus totally - but it's not all plain sailing of course as Grace is forced to relive episodes in her life that she has blotted out. Grace and Seamus are both likeable characters, she's witty and surprisingly earthy, he's a great teddy bear of a man with a twinkle in his eye. They take you with them on all the ups and downs of their fledgling relationship.

What does intrude slightly into the story is Grace's obsession with Tesla. Interspersed with the romance, we learn about Tesla's life, his grand projects, his great ideas, and his own obsesssions. Tesla is very much everyone's favourite mad scientist these days - he recently got more of a starring role in Samantha Hunt's orange nominated novel, a major cameo in The Prestige by Christopher Priest, (both of which I really enjoyed), as well as popping up in An Abundance of Katherines by John Green - a YA novel which I've yet to read. All these books featuring him just make me want to go and read their source material - notably biographies of the man by Margaret Cheney and Mark J Seifer.

All that said, I really enjoyed this novel. The author, an Australian, writes directly with great wit and handles the aspects of mental health within robustly yet with understanding She is also capable of bringing a tear to my eye, and I was sorry when it ended. ( )