Every Last Word Kindle Edition

This is the first book I have not been able to put down in a long time. Every last word is a beautifully written story of acceptance, conquered fears, friendship, and love. The power of words is a strong magic. Words have hurt us, made us laugh, and cry. It is an impressive and inspiring thing to see a character develop through their own love of writing, especially when you find it so relatable. I wish there was a poets corner at my high school, it would have made life so much better. Sam and the gang has captured my heart. Please read, I hope you love it as much as I did.

LOVED THIS BOOK!! such a great storyline, it is very mature so watch out for small things like that

CharactersSamantha: It might be difficult at first to know whether or not you're supposed to like Samantha. Sure she's the main character, but she's part of the "mean girl" clique at school. Usually we're led to believe that these girls are vain, shallow, and cruel to anyone that is not part of their group. While this may be true in the beginning for some of her friends, Samantha is actually a decent person, albeit one with a dark secret: she suffers from an obsessive disorder that makes life next to unbearable.I found her to be a ridiculously strong character. High school is difficult enough, but with a disorder like this and all the trouble that comes with it, she somehow manages to keep it a secret from her friends. Looking back on it, of course keeping a secret like this is terrible and her friends aren't worth if it they'd treat her badly because of it, but for someone in high school, image can be everything, so I understand how she felt regarding the situation.The Poet's Corner: these characters were all unique in their difficulties, but all brought together by their love of writing. In high school I would have given anything to have the comraderie they seem to share.Antagonist(s)This is sort of a difficult area because there wasn't a clear villain, exactly, though there were some "characters" that added to the difficulty of Samantha's journey.Mean Girls: these are the friends that Samantha has grown up with and fits in with the best, despite some of them being horrible people. They were a little cliche in their meanness, I'll admit. Samantha herself states that she doesn't agree fully with their bullying of other classmates, but she goes along with it out of peer pressure. I can't remember coming across someone in real life that was like Samantha in this instance. The bullies that I dealt with were jerks through and through, but in the story, at least there is hope for some of the girls. Even if they wouldn't turn out like this in real life, at least in fiction we can hope for the best and see it begin to come true.OCD: I am not very familiar with OCD as a realistic disease, so I am not sure to what degree what Samantha suffered is real. It was, however, presented in a overpowering and ever present way that made me believe, for the course of the book, that I could understand how Samantha was feeling, if only for a little bit.ImageryImagery wasn't a part of the novel that I really noticed as anything extraordinary, perhaps because it took place in the real world and it was an everyday sort of place, unlike if it were a fantasy novel. I knew, or at least could hazard a guess, what the place looked like without having to have it painted out for me.Plot/PacingI found the writing to be fairly streamlined. It was a fairly quick read. The prose was catchy enough to be interesting without too much going on, and it left off in good places at the end of chapters so that I wanted to continue.EndingThere was a fairly big surprise for Samantha toward the end that, while devastating, I was at least starting to guess midway through the book. It was an interesting choice for the author to make. In the course of the story I found it plausible, though a bit sad as the person involved in this revelation was a character that I had really felt happy with.SummaryThere are times when this novel can feel a bit dark because of the panic and terror that Samantha feels, but it is well worth the emotional journey that she and you as the reader will undertake.

I’m not usually a YA reader, but this story sucked me in. I could relate strongly with the main character’s mental health journey, and we have the same name, so that helped. While I would have enjoyed getting a bit more depth behind many of the side characters, the respectful and well-researched handling of the mental health concerns were more than impressive enough to make up for that. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves someone with anxiety, depression, OCD, ADHD, or any other type of neurodivergence.

Every Last Word is not only an extraordinary love story, it is a fascinating point of view into the mind of a girl with OCD. The thoughts that Sam had, the secrets she kept every day from her family and so-called friends, the adjustments she had to make every day of her life were truly a struggle for her, and it was amazing to see her journey through all of it and character development throughout the story. I loved how she slowly started to realize her friends that she thought were her best friends were actually horrible friends to her. Her realization after finding people who understood her and she felt comfortable with was very relatable to real-life high school friendships. Tamara Ireland Stone captured this aspect of high school perfectly with her incredible writing. Stone incorporated heartwarming poetry as well as successfully portraying the life of a girl in high school with OCD. As Sam went through all her emotions and struggles, as a reader you could feel them too. Sam’s wish to be “normal” was so heartfelt and honest that you wanted to just reach in and give her a hug. Especially after the huge plot twist, which is one of my absolute favorite parts of the book. The twist caught me by surprise, I had to put the book down and reevaluate what I just read. However, as well as getting a perspective of a girl with OCD, the readers follow Sam as she falls in love with a boy named AJ. I loved how they started on pretty rocky ground, but they worked through it and created a beautiful relationship from it. He loved her just as she was, even when she wasn’t sure how she felt about herself. If you like books with real-life problems and plot twists, but with romance and happy endings then I highly recommend this book.

I've lived with OCD my entire adult life and even after just reading the first chapter, I couldn't believe I finally found a book where the main character is like me! This book is very in depth when talking about topics like Intrusive Thoughts, Skin Scratching and Picking and other 'nastier / scarier' sides of OCD. I think I read the whole book in only a couple of hours, I seriously didn't want to stop reading. Now my Mum wants to read it so she can get a better understanding of things like Intrusive Thoughts so that she can understand me a little bit better. Very, very happy. One of the best books I've read in a LONG time!

An interesting book. The huge twist at the end left me shocked, to be honest. I thought that in places this wasn’t written as well as it could have been, and in a few places it felt a little slow, or a little fast, but overall it was a good book and something different from my usual reads

I abolutely loved this book, once I started I couldn't put it down (I read it in five hours!) the only thing that annoyed me is that it's taller than all my other books so doesn't look right sitting only shelf...kinda funny because I have OCD and it freaks me out lol. I definitely recommend!

Only one chapter in and already I find it totally relatable with all the intrusive thoughts. It's reassuring to know that I'm not the only one who has them and it doesn't make you a bad person

really great packaging and the cover is super cute