Total Constant Order, by Crissa-Jean Chappell
Chappell, Chrissa-Jean (2007). Total Constant Order. NY: Harper Collins (Katherine Tegan books). 278 pages.
Numbers, numbers, numbers: fourteen-year-old Fin sees them everywhere and thinks about them constantly. Since her family’s recent move from Vermont to Florida and her parents’ subsequent divorce, obsessive counting and drawing have become Fin’s refuge. Worried about the control the numbers seem to have begun exercising over her life, Fin asks her mother to bring her to a psychologist and she begins a course of therapy and medication and begins an unlikely friendship with an outcast boy from her class.
The first chapters of Chappell’s novel effectively describe Fin’s developing OCD and the slightly speedy introductory chapter is a compelling description of obsession voiced a la Jack Gantos’ “Joey Pigza” books. Unfortunately, the rest of the novel doesn’t retain this mood or pace, though there are some realistic and descriptive moments; the chapters during which Fin adjusts to (or attempts to adjust to) an SSRI are particularly effective. There are some dangling plot points that I would have like to have seen explored a bit more, especially with regards to Fin’s relationship with her mother and her mother’s likely OCD. While this kind of exploration might disrupt the typical no-parents-allowed narrative of the standard YA novel, in this case, it might have been appropriate.
Ultimately, I don’t feel like Chappell’s novel is as successful as Terry Spencer Hesser’s 1999 treatment of the same subject (Kissing Doorknobs); however, the bright and eerily attractive descriptions of Fin’s rituals are compelling enough to allow latitude for understanding, if not empathy.