The Unlikely Hero of Room 13 B by Teresa Toten (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Unlikely Hero of Room 13 B by Teresa Toten Karen Coats Toten, Teresa The Unlikely Hero of Room 13 B. Delacorte, 2015 289p Library ed. ISBN 978-0-553-50787-4 $20.99 Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-553-50786-7 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-553-50788-1 $10.99 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. Copyright © 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois