Review : Addition
Addition by Toni Jordan
Pages : 258
Genre : chick lit, psychology
My Rating : 4/5
I picked up Addition by australian author Toni Jordan for many reasons; the colorful cover reminded me of the upcoming spring, I was in the mood for a light read and the back cover’s descriptions seemed like something I would enjoy. Happily for me, I can say I haven’t been disappointed.
Description taken from the author’s website :
Grace Lisa Vandenburg counts.
The letters in her name (19). The steps she takes every morning to the local café (920); the number of poppy seeds on her slice of orange cake, which dictates the number of bites she’ll take to finish it. Grace counts everything, because numbers hold the world together. And she needs to keep an eye on how they’re doing.
Seamus Joseph O’Reilly (also a 19, with the sexiest hands Grace has ever seen) thinks she might be better off without the counting. If she could hold down a job, say. Or open her kitchen cupboards without conducting an inventory, or make a sandwich containing an unknown number of sprouts.
Grace’s problem is that Seamus doesn’t count.
Her other problem is…he does.
Addition is a short read, and Grace was easy to get attached to. Her counting doesn’t get in the way of her sense of humor, and I enjoyed watching her fall in love. While she tells her life through numbers, the reader gets a sense of how controlled is her existence, from the time she wakes up to what she cooks up for dinner. We get to see through her eyes, and while her perception is mostly different, she is also very aware that “counting” isn’t something “normal.”
The story isn’t an in-depth observation of mental illness and its consequences, but it does focus more on Grace’s mental condition than on her romance with Seamus. The author talks with insight of healing and treatment, the text being the occasion to pop up some good questions; does Grace need to be treated and changed? Or does she only needs to learn how to live the way she is?
In short, this was a book I enjoyed; a 258 pages “chick lit” with an out of the ordinary lead character.
Sounds great! I already relate to the main character, unfortunately. Not so much with counting, but with general OCD! 🙂 And I love the cover, too. Adding to my wishlist!
I’m with you on that. I could relate to the character this way too, although it never was an obstacle to my life as it is in Grace’s life. But in any case, it was a nice book for the genre! 🙂
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