Book Tour OCD, The DUDE and ME by: Lauren Roedy Vaughn

Title: OCD, The DUDE and ME
Author: Lauren Roedy Vaughn
Publisher: Dial Books a Division of Penguin Books
Pages: 234
Format: Hardcover
Source: Pump Up Your Book Promotions
Purchase: Barnes and Noble | Amazon

Description:

Seventeen-year-old Danielle Levine is your typical high school teen-ager - if you count having OCD and ADHD as typical.  

Danielle's "special" conditions lead her to a school for students with learning disabilities, and, even here, she struggles to fit in.

How Danielle navigates her status as a "learning-challenged" teen pariah is told, with equal parts pain and hilarity, in Lauren Roedy Vaughn's debut Young Adult novel, OCD, THE DUDE, AND ME, which Kirkus Review has hailed as a "must-read."

Told through a mélange of Danielle's class assignments, journal entries, emails, texts, and letters to the school psychiatrist, OCD, THE DUDE, AND ME chronicles Danielle's efforts to fit into a world that, to her, can be as alien as a distant planet. Yet, Danielle will be recognizable to her readers, with her body-image issues, her crush on an unattainable boy, and her feelings of insecurity over the rigid social code of high school life.

Just as things seemingly couldn't get worse for her, Danielle meets a new friend, Daniel, who turns her on to the Coen Brothers' classic cult film THE BIG LEBOWSKI and its indelible main character, the ever-cool, ever abiding Dude. Daniel and Danielle end up going to the prom together and to Lebowski Fest, an annual event celebrating the Dude and his Buddha-like philosophy, which says that things will work out if you "abide."

My Thoughts:

What a great incredible story that follows the senior year of OCD and ADHD Danielle who has trouble finding her way when she feels her illness controls her.  I applaud how far she came in one year, how she was able to make her situation into a positive one that even got her some friends, a date to the prom and some relationships that I think will last a lifetime.  I couldn't put the book down once it showed up in the mailbox.

It was definitely a great look into mental illness and trying to overcome it and about how trauma can really affect you when it happens young.  Just such a great and fabulous story!