Addition

Could a chick-lit romance centering on a mentally ill woman be funny and succeed as a romance? In the case of Toni Jordan's Addition, yes! Grace, whose life is on hold due to her obsession with numbers and counting, meets Seamus when she nicks his lone banana while waiting in line at the grocery store to make up to the perfect number 10. The relationship blossoms and Grace faces the need to enter therapy. Medication soon resolves Grace's OCD--but is she still Grace? Will Seamus still love her? Will she still love herself? Can she overcome mental illness and find true happiness?

Addition by Australian author Toni Jordan is the surprisingly charming story of Grace, who's need to count everything and to regiment her life means she can no longer work as a schoolteacher. Instead, she spends her days carefully consuming her meals in precisely the correct number of bites, of counting her footsteps and in thinking about her hero, Nikola Tesla. Then she meets Seamus, who destroys her careful scheduling in a way that she doesn't even mind.

What's fun about this variation on the usual chick-lit novel is that Grace doesn't shop, she measures. And falling in love doesn't cure her, but provides a catalyst for her to work toward a less constrained existence which, in the end, may well not include Seamus at all.

Books are supposed to make you feel, right? Sometimes you're supposed to come away optimistic about the human condition, sometimes you want to curl up in the tightest ball possible, lock your bedroom door and turn the lights out. Just because the feeling you get is bad doesn't mean the book is bad, or that it's not worthwhile.

So when I say this book made me uncomfortable, I want the context to be preserved. I think it was its goal - to a point. Addition is the story of a woman who's very much in the grips of a counting compulsion - she knows the number of steps it takes to get from one part of her house to the other, then to the cafe, then once she's there she eats the cake she (always) orders in the same number of bits as there are show more poppyseeds on top. And that's one of the more normal bits.

I don't want to give away the plot, but suffice it to say that things change (several times) once she meets The Guy. And it becomes frustrating and infuriating ... and I think that's on purpose, too? One of the great facets of the book is that in reading how the numbers affect Grace, they really start to get under the nerves of the reader. But it's not an obvious thing. I found myself affected not by the things she was counting, but by the sheer number of numbers she was keeping track of. Having to slog through every one of those numbers is analogous, I imagine - though by no means the same thing - the she was going through. I completely understood/felt like it made sense when one activity had to get called off, simply because I was so exhausted trying to keep up with the nervous counting.

What left me short was the ending. Grace goes through a number of different phases, as we'll call them, from full-on incapacitation by counting to love-fueled powering-through to counseling to back to the way it was ... and then we get to the end. How exactly everything turns out is left up to the reader, but I found myself completely unsure if we were dealing with someone who learned to deal with their compulsion and would be moderating it, was just abandoning themselves to the compulsion devil-may-care, or what. Everything up to and including running away to London would have seemed perfectly in keeping with the character's attitudes, which made it a little frustrating. The entire piece is supposed to be a character study - why can't we learn enough about the character?

Nonetheless, it's an excellent work that will appeal to the normal and the rest of us equally. show less

This was, by turns, funny and bittersweet. It's the story of a woman with severe OCD who is torn between being her genuine self and getting help to lead a more "normal" life. It is kind of a romantic comedy but with a bit more depth. And while I found some of the details about her obsessive need to count things a little tiresome, Jordan does a good job of exploring both the limits and horizons of this kind of life.

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 show more 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. show less

Books are supposed to make you feel, right? Sometimes you're supposed to come away optimistic about the human condition, sometimes you want to curl up in the tightest ball possible, lock your bedroom door and turn the lights out. Just because the feeling you get is bad doesn't mean the book is bad, or that it's not worthwhile.

So when I say this book made me uncomfortable, I want the context to be preserved. I think it was its goal - to a point. Addition is the story of a woman who's very much in the grips of a counting compulsion - she knows the number of steps it takes to get from one part of her house to the other, then to the cafe, then once she's there she eats the cake she (always) orders in the same number of bits as there are show more poppyseeds on top. And that's one of the more normal bits.

I don't want to give away the plot, but suffice it to say that things change (several times) once she meets The Guy. And it becomes frustrating and infuriating ... and I think that's on purpose, too? One of the great facets of the book is that in reading how the numbers affect Grace, they really start to get under the nerves of the reader. But it's not an obvious thing. I found myself affected not by the things she was counting, but by the sheer number of numbers she was keeping track of. Having to slog through every one of those numbers is analogous, I imagine - though by no means the same thing - the she was going through. I completely understood/felt like it made sense when one activity had to get called off, simply because I was so exhausted trying to keep up with the nervous counting.

What left me short was the ending. Grace goes through a number of different phases, as we'll call them, from full-on incapacitation by counting to love-fueled powering-through to counseling to back to the way it was ... and then we get to the end. How exactly everything turns out is left up to the reader, but I found myself completely unsure if we were dealing with someone who learned to deal with their compulsion and would be moderating it, was just abandoning themselves to the compulsion devil-may-care, or what. Everything up to and including running away to London would have seemed perfectly in keeping with the character's attitudes, which made it a little frustrating. The entire piece is supposed to be a character study - why can't we learn enough about the character?

Nonetheless, it's an excellent work that will appeal to the normal and the rest of us equally. show less

An interesting look at OCD and how an individual deals with it, as well as a subtle and beautifully unfolded love story. Also a very interesting look at mental illness - is it actually illness? When do you seek treatment, and why? What sort of treatment will actually benefit you, and what will cripple you? A nice jab at psychiatry and how the "professionals" are dealing with mental illness.