I learned a lot from this book. First off, I always thought it was Tourette’s Syndrome. But it isn’t. It’s just Tourette Syndrome. And it wasn’t just that I learned things, this book really made me feel a lot of emotions. Sadness for sure, but also some good hopeful things, as well as definitely some anger at people who acted the way they did. But I get it, I’m sure without realizing it I’ve done similar types of things to people who behaved in ways I was unsure of. I feel like books like this are good for teens to read and learn about other that are unlike them, so that they can understand more about it.

And it’s not just strangers, even those people who were closest to Troy didn’t necessarily realize what they were doing wasn’t helping him. Even his dad had to learn to not just accept the little tics and idiosyncrasies that were part of Troy’s condition, but he had to learn how those things affected Troy as well. It was even more than the Tourette Syndrome and OCD he was dealing with. Those things caused him to have pain in his body from all the time he tried so hard to hold in the tics and keep from doing things that he knew other people would think were strange and look at him funny for. I never really thought about how much pain all the tics would cause, and that trying to keep them from happening would be even more painful.

I definitely understood how he felt it was better to just think about an end and not having to deal with all of it. Those feelings are there for people like myself who just suffer from anxiety and depression, so I can only imagine why it would seem so much like the best option for someone dealing with more than me. Khory was a wonderful person in this, and really her friends were pretty cool too for how quickly they were able to overcome what was the strange behavior and just see Troy as a peer.

I highly recommend this book and look forward to sharing it with my students in the high school library where I work.

Review first posted on Lisa Loves Literature.