Every Last Word

All these words

On these walls.

Beautiful, inspired, funny.

Because they are yours.

Words terrify me.

To hear, speak

To think about

Wish they didn't

I stay quiet.

Keeping words in

Where they fester

and control me.

I'm here now

Letting them out

Freeing my words

Building better walls

The story starts with Sam and her friends getting ready to celebrate Valentine's Day. Sam was about to cut the stem of roses when a voice inside her head tells her to just cut off her friend’s hair, her own hair, and even her arm. Worried her friends would figure out her truth, she rushes downstairs to the kitchen area where her little sister asks her if she is doing okay. Sam notices the knives on the kitchen counter, and suddenly a voice in her head tells her to harm her sister.

The book revolves around a young high school girl Samantha aka Sam who suffers from OCD. She is one of the popular girls from a group called Crazy Eights (although the number now is reduced to 5/6). She has been suffering from OCD since she was 11 years old, but no one has the slightest idea of Sam’s OCD. Sam is afraid that if her friends knew about her mental illness, they would look down on her. But she is also tired of living a life of lies. She then meets “Caroline” who seems to understand Sam and introduces her to the poet's corner. She also meets AJ there, who for some reason doesn’t seem to like her that much. He isn’t happy to learn that Sam is possibly going to be a part of the poetry team. Sam on the other hand loves the poetry club. The room is hidden from everyone and only people who need an escape from the real world meet up there to share their frustrations, and to be themselves without being judged. The poems throughout the book are amazing.

Sam later finds out that she used to bully AJ while they were in middle school. AJ used to stutter as a kid. And Sam and her friend being the attention-seeking bullies they were, bullied AJ. It wasn’t just mocking him for stuttering, it went as bad as following him around the school, throwing the junk into his backpack and even calling his house to mock him. AJ cried countless times, asking them to stop but that made them take things even further. AJ was badly traumatized from the bullying that he had to transfer schools. But seeing how he still is in the poetry club. Sam realizes that her actions had a long-lasting impact on him. Sam now wants to change, asking for forgiveness as she has already been infatuated with AJ, especially when he is playing his guitar and reading his poetry to the people in the club.

Later when she tells her friends that she is dating AJ, one of her friends asks if she is dating him out of pity. Sam gets mad and stands out for AJ, but she is still hesitant to talk to them about Caroline aka her new best friend. She storms off from her friends and sees Caroline standing in the hallway. She feels guilty about not telling her friends about Caroline. She has a little disagreement with Caroline and Caroline storms away. She tries looking for Caroline everywhere, but no sign of her anywhere. She then sees AJ near the lockers and decides to ask him about Caroline. AJ was horrified hearing the name “Caroline” and asked Sam to clarify further. Sam goes on to explain to AJ how Caroline was the one who introduced her to the poetry club, and she has been spending lunchtime with Caroline, and that she invited. AJ then tells Sam that Caroline took her own life five years ago. Sam runs away from AJ. She is afraid that AJ will now think of her as a crazy girl. She ran to see her therapist, but her therapist was seeing someone else at that time. Sam is going through a panic attack and immediately leaves the hospital and drives to a place far from the city area. She parks her car and starts crying. When she is going through her interactions with Caroline, she realizes that she never actually touched Caroline. Caroline wasn’t the one who took her to the poetry club, she went to the club herself. Caroline wasn’t the one who had persuaded AJ to let Sam join the club, she did it herself. She finally realizes that Caroline wasn’t real but a creation of her own imagination. She is overwhelmed thinking that the time when she thought she was having a conversation with Caroline, she was talking to herself. Upon realizing that she bawls out crying. She misses tons of calls from her mom, and her therapist Susy. Later she lets Susy know where she is, and they have a talk. Susy tells her she created Caroline when she was in desperate need of a friend. Caroline was a perfect friend in every way possible because that’s what Sam wanted from a friend. After a few weeks, she tells AJ that she has been suffering from OCD since her early teenage years. She is afraid AJ would leave her after learning about her OCD, but AJ tells her that he loves her the same. The story ends with AJ taking Sam to her appointments with Dr. Susy.

The book makes a good attempt at informing people about OCD in certain ways. I didn’t like Sam’s character that much, but I still felt bad for her when she was going through her panic attacks, when she had no control over her obsessive thoughts, and when she was afraid to tell other people and even her own friends about her condition. However, I wasn’t really a fan of AJ and Sam’s relationship. Sam had been horrible to AJ in the past and we can still see how it affected AJ even years later. Sam was also horrible to people around her and her own friends. Dr. Susy is always telling Sam that her friends are toxic, which I highly disagree with because Sam was equally or even more toxic to her friends. Sam realizes that and later works on freeing herself and her friends from the toxic attachments they had for each other. Throughout the book, Sam says that she can’t imagine not having access to private parties, VIP concert tickets, and all the luxury that came with staying friends with her popular friends. But since the story revolves around the people who are just in high school, I do not want to judge them for their shortcomings, and selfish behaviors because most of us were selfish at their age too. Overall the book was really good. I was a great fan of all the poems throughout the book. The poems were raw and powerful. They made me ugly cry and smile.

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