Customer Reviews

Total Constant Order

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According to the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation, over 35 million Americans will suffer with an anxiety disorder or depressive illness each year. Also, "OCD strikes about 1 in 40 adults and about 1 in 100 school-aged children." Despite these statistics, only a few novels dare to approach the issue.

Crissa-Jean Chappell's debut novel, Total Consant Order, tackles this issue deftly, in the story of Fin, who develops depression and OCD after the demise of her parent's marriage. What enhances the novel is the author's personal connection to the issue. She herself experienced depression and was treated with Paxil. Chappell takes a slow and steady route with the novel, and builds the anxious inner world of Fin carefully. We're introduced to Thayer, an outsider, the only kindred spirit in Fin's world, and who might be the only one who can truly understand her.

Chappell doesn't go to extremes, aiming for maximum drama, and treating her novel as if it were a Lifetime movie. The prose is crisp and clean, with each word working to envoke a feeling from a reader. The novel balances Fin's search for stability with her counting obsession with the search for relationship with her mother, and reconciling with the idea of her parents divorce. Fin's reaction to Paxil comes as a crushing blow to her emotional and physical health, and the author writes realistically, channelling her own experience, and giving voice to a disorder that affects so many.

Rhythm is the pulse of life. Everything has rhythm. The waves in the ocean, cars buzzing down the highway, the drip of the rain after a spring shower, the pencil scraping across our paper, even our own pulse in our ears, late at night when all should be quiet.

Fin doesn't know quiet. For her, the rhythm has become more than a beat. It's an obsession. It's good luck to turn a light on three times -- the wrong number could be deadly. The roar of numbers in her head blocks the outside chaos. They offer comfort. Stability. She taps her seat three times. Someone touches her shoulder. She touches the opposite one. It's about keeping life in balance. Control.

Control is something Fin lost when her parents uttered those devastating words, "...this doesn't mean we're abandoning you or that we don't love you anymore." The D-word. Moving from a place she loves, to a place she doesn't. Her mother copes by excessive cleaning. Fin copes by counting.

Soon, Fin's mother has her visiting Dr. Calaban. Fin meets Thayer, who is also being treated by Dr. Calaban, but for ADD. Fin discovers there's a name for what she's feeling: OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. She wonders if it's hereditary as her mother rewashes the jeep Fin's just finished washing. With the help of Thayer and Dr. Calaban, Fin rediscovers her love of something she'd lost along the way, something that will help calm the need for total constant order.

TOTAL CONSTANT ORDER is a riveting first novel by debut author Crissa-Jean Chappell. I was sad to end the book because I wanted to spend more time with the characters. I kept trying to slow down as I read, to linger and enjoy, but it was impossible. Each chapter drove me forward to the next and the next until the final page. The characters were fresh and real. I know you'll enjoy them as much as I did!

Reviewed by: Cana Rensberger

Fin hears numbers. Ever since her parents divorce, numbers thump in her head in rhythm, keeping things in control. When a new doctor introduces her to the term, "OCD" and writes a prescription for medication, the chemical effects make Fin feel even worse. That is until she meet Thayer, a doodling skater who buzzes to his own beat and might just understand Fin's need to belong and her struggle for total constant order.

Crissa-Jean Chappell's paints a realistic portrayal of what it's like to be a teen with OCD. Also she shows the side effects of the medicine and how Fin struggles to gain control. I especially liked the mother/daughter relationship and how Fin realizes that maybe she isn't the only one who needs order. I also liked the portrayal of Thayer who has ADD. The reader gets a glimpse into what it must be like to see the world differently from others.

I highly recommend this book. It should be a must-read selection in middle schools and high schools.

I bought Total Constant Order because my son and I are learning about developmental disorders as part of our homeschooling curriculum. We're reading it together, and we're finding it to be an interesting book. It's written in first person, which allows the reader to enter into the thinking of the protagonist more. The author has done a good job describing the rather scattered and anxiety driven thinking of Fin, and Thayer is a nice foil to her. I'm pleased with the way the author made the situation realistic without a lot of four-letter words. I would recommend the book to others, especially anyone who is searching for information or help with OCD.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, though I knew I was intrigued. The back cover blurb calls it "a haunting exploration of one teen's experience with OCD and Paxil," which kind of makes it sound like an informercial.

I think that's selling a wonderful story very short.

Fin is a high school student. Her parents are divorced, and she and her mother have moved to a new town in a new state. But her outside world isn't all that's out of control. Her mind is, too. She finds herself obsessed with numbers, with counting, with doing things in a precise pattern, and she feels helpless to stop.

Then she meets Thayer, who's even weirder than she is, and the unlikely pair begin a friendship that helps both of them.

Yes, Fin has OCD, and yes, she ends up taking Paxil and we see the effects it has on her, but Total Constant Order is about so much more than that. It's about growing up, about being a teenager--and let's face it, teenagers with or without OCD feel that their lives are beyond their control. It's about facing the problems of life with a friend, about learning when to ask for help, and about discovering that parents are fallible people, too.

In other words, it's a coming-of-age story, not unlike a fairy tale. Only Fin's battling OCD instead of a dragon.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and couldn't put it down. The descriptions of what was going on in Fin's head were so vivid and clear that the lines between "normal" and "crazy," never very distinct to begin with, were blurred, reminding me of the hero's POV from Tod Goldberg's Living Dead Girl. I felt with her the frustration as she tried to get help, and fell a little in love with Thayer along with her.

And at the same time, Fin's mom in particular made me think about parenting and trying to do our best with imperfect knowledge and difficult situations, while being imperfect ourselves.

All in all, a wonderful, relatable story that applies to everyone who is or has been a teenager.

Great book, i read it in one night. Very interesting characters. I met the author when she came to my school and she is fantasic. Really down to earth. She is in fact very much like Fin, her main character. ABSOLUTLY LOVED THE BOOK!~