Review: Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone

Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone

Genre: YA, Romance, Contemporary, Mental Health

Release Date: June 16, 2015

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Format: paperback                     Pages: 368

Sources: Publisher

Goodreads Synopsis:

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.

My Thoughts:

Can you say tearjerker? This story blew me away. It had enough realism to make it easy to relate to the characters and enough fiction to make it an extremely entertaining read. Every last word is one of those books that you just connect with on a deeper level. It stays with you and it makes you make connections with reality that you might not have seen before. The subject matter is real and that's what makes this book amazing. Sam deals with so much and struggles daily and you feel for her. This is one of those books that you pray for a happy ending. I wish that my school had a place like Poets Corner. A place where people can feel safe being who they are. I adored everything about this book. This is a book that everyone should read.