Kissing Doorknobs

Source: http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/056/8/4/84e9e0d200fef4416ab15de35fa8e357-d2o1t2z.jpg

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Citation: Hesser, Terry. Kissing Doorknobs. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, 1999. print

Annotation:

 

Author Terry Hesser presents the reader with the story of Tara. Since a very age, Tara has worried and more so than most children. Once at age 11 when she hears the rhyme “Step on a crack and break you mother’s back”, her obsessive compulsiveness kicks into high gears. The book follows Tara from that point to 14 years old. Along the way, we witness how family, friends and Tara herself are affected by her worsening condition.

Nomination thoughts:

I do not recommend this otherwise ok book for our final nomination. The book never went for the kill. By that I mean that the author has all the pieces in place for an outstanding book and yet ended up with an average book. The character development of Tara was strong enough and her family struggles with her poignant. The narrative structure was too simplistic to delve fully into the complexity of the family structure though. The dialog throughout the book was somewhat sparse. If there had been more, the reader could have better understood the complexity of Tara and other characters. The book also had too simplistic of sentence structure and flow. Parts had lyrical power but most read choppy. Due to that reason, it might appeal to younger teens or tweens who want a book that deals with a real life issue but has a lower lexile score. I still believe, even with the aforementioned issues, that the book takes an honest enough look at OCD to help teens relate to the issue as someone with it or someone who knows a person with it. The overall quality just does not rise high enough to justify a nomination from me.