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The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B
Author:
Toten, Teresa
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Class:
Fiction
Age: 12-19
Language: English
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LC: PZ7.T645
Grade: 7-12
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ISBN-13: 9780553507867
LCCN: 2014016363
Imprint: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Publisher: Delacorte Press
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Pub Date: 03/10/2015
Availability: Out of Stock Indefinitely
List: $17.99
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Hardcover
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Physical Description:
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289 pages ; 22 cm
H 8.56",
W 5.88",
D 1",
0.9125 lbs.
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LC Series:
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Brodart Sources:
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Brodart's For Youth Interest: Popular
Brodart's Insight Catalog: Teen
Brodart's TOP Young Adult Titles
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Bibliographies:
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Senior High Core Collection, 20th ed.
Senior High Core Collection, 21st ed.
Senior High Core Collection, 22nd ed.
Texas Lone Star Reading List
Young Adult Fiction Core Collection, 4th ed.
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Awards:
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Best Fiction for Young Adults
Horn Book Guide Titles, Rated 1 - 4
Kirkus Starred Reviews
Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
Schneider Family Book Award
School Library Journal Starred Reviews
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Starred Reviews:
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Kirkus Reviews
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TIPS Subjects:
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Psychological Fiction
School Stories
Family Life
Romance
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BISAC Subjects: |
YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Social Themes / Depression
YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Family / Marriage & Divorce
YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Romance / Contemporary
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LC Subjects:
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Dating (Social customs), Fiction
Dating (Social customs), Juvenile fiction
Dating, Fiction
Emotional problems of teenagers, Juvenile fiction
Emotional problems, Fiction
Family problems, Fiction
Family problems, Juvenile fiction
High schools, Fiction
High schools, Juvenile fiction
Obsessive-compulsive disorder, Fiction
Obsessive-compulsive disorder, Juvenile fiction
Psychological fiction
Schools, Fiction
Schools, Juvenile fiction
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SEARS Subjects: |
Dating (Social customs), Fiction
Family problems, Fiction
High schools, Fiction
Mental health, Fiction
Obsessive-compulsive disorder, Fiction
Psychological fiction
School stories
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Reading Programs: |
Accelerated Reader Level:
4.6
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Points: 9.0
Lexile Level:
620
Reading Counts Level:
4.5
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Points: 16.0
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| Annotations |
| Brodart's TOP Young Adult Titles | 07/01/2015 |
| Adam Spencer Ross makes it his personal duty to save the girl he meets in his Young Adult OCD Support Group when he learns she just got out of a dreaded residential psychiatric program. 304pp. |
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| Starred Reviews: |
| Kirkus Reviews | 01/15/2015 |
| What would it feel like to wake up normal? It's a question most people would never have cause to ask--and the one 14-year-old Adam Spencer Ross longs to have answered. Life is already complicated enough for Adam, but when Robyn Plummer joins the Young Adult OCD Support Group in room 13B, Adam falls fast and hard. Having long assumed the role of protector to those he loves, Adam immediately knows that he must do everything he can to save her. The trouble is, Robyn isn't the one who needs saving. Adam's desperate need to protect everyone he loves--his broken mother, a younger half brother with OCD tendencies, and the entire motley crew of Room 13B--nearly costs him everything. Adam's first-person account of his struggle to cope with the debilitating symptoms of OCD while navigating the complexities of everyday teen life is achingly authentic. Much like Adam, readers will have to remind themselves to breathe as he performs his ever worsening OCD rituals. Yet Toten does a masterful job bringing Adam to life without ever allowing him to become a one-dimensional poster boy for a teen suffering from mental illness. Readers be warned: Like Augustus Waters before him, Adam Spencer Ross will renew your faith in real-life superheroes and shatter your heart in equal measure. (Fiction. 12 & up). 304pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2015. |
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| Journal Reviews |
| BookPage | 03/18/2015 |
| Almost 15, Adam Ross has outgrown his pants and fallen in love with Robyn Plummer all in the same week. Combine that with navigating his divorced parents, his needy-yet-adorable stepbrother, his mother's hoarding and his own Obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Adam can hardly imagine what a "normal" high school experience would be like. In fact, as all of these things converge, Adam might just be in over his head. The Governor General's Award-winning novel by Canadian author Teresa Toten is a breathtaking portrayal of the anxiety, confusion and yearning for community that will be familiar to teenage readers--and, for that matter, readers of any age. In this younger, softer Silver Linings Playbook, Adam works hard to be a superhero, protecting his stepbrother and his mother and playing Batman to his newfound love, Robyn. His sheer determination is equal parts inspiring and heartbreaking. The complex, richly developed teen characters in this novel are all coping with various degrees of OCD, and Toten treats the subject with admirable deftness. At no point is the disorder reduced to a stereotype or to an object of pity. It's an obstacle and another serious complication in an already-complicated stage of life, but it never defines the characters or becomes the novel's central focus. Instead, the core of the story is the struggle Adam and his group face to understand themselves and each other, and to navigate their roles in new friendships, evolving families and first loves. Sarah Weber. BookPage Yay! YA Web Exclusive Review. BOOKPAGE, c2015. |
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| Booklist | 02/01/2015 |
| Grades 8-11. Two teens with OCD try to have a "normal" relationship in this honest, fresh, and funny novel. Adam Spencer Harris falls in love with Robyn Plummer, the new member of his therapy group for young adults with OCD. When the group members choose superhero names and Robyn picks "Robin," who else can Adam be but Batman? A friendship, then more, springs up between Adam and Robyn, but as they become closer, Adam's rituals begin intensifying. In addition, his mother's compulsive hoarding, the vile anonymous letters she has been receiving, and Adam's role as the one to assuage his little half brother's anxieties put more stress on him. Ultimately, Adam is perceptive enough to realize that he is jeopardizing not only Robyn's recovery but also his own. Adam is impressively drawn: smart, sensitive, and neither helpless nor hopeless. He is supported by a vivid cast of well-rounded, believable characters, from his group members to the assorted adults in his life. Toten employs information about OCD like grace notes in this deft and compelling narrative. Scanlon, Donna. 304p. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2015. |
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| Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books | 06/01/2015 |
| R. Gr. 8-10. When Robyn joins the Young Adult OCD Support Group, fourteen-year-old Adam falls immediately and totally in love. He already plenty on his plate: since his parents' divorce and his father's remarriage, his mother has started hoarding, and his new little stepbrother suffers from sadness that only Adam can manage. Meanwhile, Adam seems to have informally taken control of Group as well, introducing them to the comforting space and rituals of his Catholic church. He helps Robyn, too, and they do fall sweetly in love, but as his mother's hoarding and other symptoms escalate, so do Adam's compulsions, until finally he is unable to breach the threshold of his own home. Adam is thoroughly likable and thoroughly liked by the other characters, who come to see him as a hero. Readers spend so much time in his head with him that his rituals take on heartbreaking immediacy; his desperation to save his mother, his stepbrother, and his beloved Robyn render the fact that he is losing himself all the more tragic. Toten never plays coy in her depiction of his and others' illness, but she also shows Adam as someone straining toward normal and sometimes achieving it. While Adam's altruism never falters, his vulnerability, humor, and thoughtful responses keep him from seeming too good to be true; he's just a guy who's chosen compassion over bitterness in the face of his suffering, and his plight is sure to inspire compassion in readers as well. An interview with the author follows the text. KC. 289p. THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIV. OF ILLINOIS, c2015. |
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| Horn Book Guide | 11/01/2015 |
| 3. Fifteen-year-old Adam falls for Robyn in his teen OCD therapy group. Adam's insightful, steadfast support helps Robyn (and several other groupmates) improve--but Adam actually seems to get worse. While the tone is light overall (superhero group names!), there are plenty of touching, even wrenching, moments as Adam struggles to accept his own limitations and those of his loved ones. klb. 291pg. THE HORN BOOK, c2015. |
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| Publishers Weekly | 03/02/2015 |
| Ages 12-up. When 14-year-old Adam Spencer Ross falls for a girl named Robyn Plummer, who attends his OCD support group, it provides him with an instant inspiration to try to become "normal." Despite medicine and therapy, Adam struggles with compulsive rituals and anxieties, particularly concerning his mother, who is acting increasingly strange herself. Adam's internal monologues, which include interwoven lists of his beliefs and worries, are intense and realistic ("I believe that I am unclean and will harm those I care about the most and that there is too much noise in my head and that I am so goddamned tired"). While the book offers an unflinching look at mental illness, Toten's (The Onlyhouse) characters are also able to see humor in their darkest moments. Adam's path to accepting ownership over his health is filled with pain and false starts that are highly personal; as a result, Adam is a fresh and complex character, and far more than the sum of his symptoms. Winner of the 2013 Governor General's Award for children's text. Agent: Marie Campbell, Transatlantic Agency. (Mar.). 304p. Web-Exclusive Review. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2015. |
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| ~VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates Magazine - Retired Journal) | 02/01/2015 |
| 3Q 3P J. When OCD sufferer Adam meets Robyn at his support group, he is quickly smitten with her. After a long time of refusing to do the homework assigned by the group therapist, Adam decides that if he wants to have a shot with Robyn, he has to get his compulsions under control. But that is easier said than done. Dealing with divorcing parents, a younger stepbrother, and his mother's own issues, Adam finds out that sometimes coping and getting closer to people means that difficult secrets are hard to keep. Toten's novel deals with a subject that is often overlooked in young adult literature and the fact that her young protagonist deals with OCD in his daily life is handled honestly. The book does not promise a miracle cure but rather remains focused on how to cope with OCD. Adam is a protagonist that readers will root for and can identify with as they read. The plot is relatively simple, with Adam's quest to have a shot at being Robyn's boyfriend while juggling his home life, and the simplicity of the plot serves the novel well. If Toten had tried to cram different elements into the novel to make it "extraordinary," it may not have worked as well as it does. Purchase this book for a collection where diversity is needed.--Paige Garrison. 304p. VOICE OF YOUTH ADVOCATES, c2015. |
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9780553507867,dl.it[0].title
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