Disturbingly, Gornall uses a home invasion as a catalyst for Norah’s out-of-the-blue progress at the end, rendering this traumatic event as not only benign-leaving no emotional scars-but productive.Įxcellent prose is undercut by a highly implausible ending. Although Norah’s voice is droll, desperate, and compelling, her illness rules her plot arc as it rules her life. She’s a “tall skinny blonde with baby-blue doe eyes,” but her insecurities meld into her illness. She tries to date the respectful, devoted, almost-impossibly-perfect boy next door without leaving her house or touching him. I swear.’ I twirl, because nothing says I’m mentally stable quite like an impromptu pirouette” “I wonder if I can buy a lobotomy on eBay.” Her self-awareness is believably inconsistent: she knows cutting is self-injury but won’t accept that skin-scratching-which she does constantly, until she bleeds-also counts. Norah narrates her obsessive thoughts, terror, anxiety, tics, coping mechanisms, panic attacks, and losses of consciousness in a first-person voice that’s vivid, tormented, sad, and funny: “ ‘I’m fine. Her unflaggingly supportive and adoring mom home-schools her. Her illness arrived suddenly now agoraphobia and OCD prevent her from leaving her house and direct every minute of her day and night. Seventeen-year-old Norah’s high school career ended four years ago. Housebound with severe mental illness, a white teen fights her demons and attempts a romance with a neighbor.
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