Used
Paperback
2008
$3.25
Grace's life is organised according to a strict routine - she wakes up at the same time every day, flosses the same number of times each morning, takes the same number of steps to the same cafe, where she sits at the same table and orders a hot chocolate with two marshmallows and a slice of orange cake. She eats the cake in the same number of bites as there are poppy seeds on top of the cake, so sometimes she might have to take six big bites and other times thirty-three tiny ones. One day, her usual table is taken...forced to share a table with a stranger, her life is turned upside down. Though Grace's OCD has led to her losing her job and her life becoming very small (she often finds herself talking to a photograph of Nikola Tesla, the inventor of electricity, that she keeps in her bedroom), she isn't a victim in anyway. And when, encouraged by her new boyfriend, she begins a course of drugs and therapy, and starts to lose the things which have defined her, both she and those closest to her, reconsider their views on her illness. This is a smart, thought-provoking novel as well as a wonderful romantic comedy.It looks at the role of medication in society, questions our right to judge how others manage their lives and asks, 'what's so great about being normal anyway? '