OCD, the Dude, and Me - Hardcover

Vaughn, Lauren Roedy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803738439 ISBN 13: 9780803738430

Publisher: Dial Books, 2013

Synopsis

With frizzy orange hair, a plus-sized body, sarcastic demeanor, and "unique learning profile," Danielle Levine doesn't fit in even at her alternative high school. While navigating her doomed social life, she writes scathing, self-aware, and sometimes downright raunchy essays for English class. As a result of her unfiltered writing style, she is forced to see the school psychologist and enroll in a "social skills" class. But when she meets Daniel, another social misfit who is obsessed with the cult classic film The Big Lebowski, Danielle's resolve to keep everyone at arm's length starts to crumble.

About this title

About the Author

Lauren Roedy Vaughn is an award-winning educator who has spent twenty years teaching English to high school students with language-based learning disabilities. Lauren lives with her husband in Los Angeles, where she is an avid yogini and Big Lebowski nut.

Reviews

Gr 9 Up-Readers will enjoy 17-year-old Danielle Levine's antics as she writes about her senior year in essays assigned by her English teacher. Ms. Harrison doesn't always appreciate the latitude Danielle takes with each assignment and is frank in her responses, making readers feel the curse of the red pen. Danielle goes to an alternative high school in California where she struggles with OCD, has no friends, has to attend social-skills class, and has to deal with her crush, Jacob, who sends her mixed signals throughout the book. The teen is surely down on herself and readers will wonder why. As the plot turns, this well-developed character eventually reveals what caused her to leave her old school. Readers will watch her grow and appreciate her insightfulness into a variety of situations and classmates. Reluctant readers will appreciate the style of writing, and novice writers will see how it is therapeutic for Danielle. Initially readers understand why no one likes her, but by the end of her transformation, her classmates see her differently, and teens will, too. It is apparent that Vaughn understands adolescents and what it is like to watch them develop as writers and work through a traumatic experience. With a touch of humor and sarcasm throughout, this one is sure to find an appreciative audience.-Karen Alexander, Lake Fenton High School, Linden, MIα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Written as a series of high-school English essays, private journal entries, letters, and e-mails, Vaughn’s debut novel introduces senior Danielle Levine. The format works particularly well given that Danielle, a loner, finds it easiest to communicate through writing. She also has OCD, often rearranging her collection of snow globes for comfort, and she attends a special school, where she pines after Jacob. Danielle’s voice is fresh, funny, and insightful, and her self-aware comments feel spot-on: I felt myself move into myself, literally, as if I had been, for years, a cartoon drawn by a drunk, cross-eyed artist who couldn’t keep me in the lines. As senior year passes, Danielle steps out of her comfort zone to attend the class trip to England, falls in and out of love with unsuspecting Jacob, and most transformative of all, makes a friend, gay Daniel, becoming his fruit fly (a fag hag of sorts) as they bond over The Big Lebowski. By novel’s end, readers will have only the highest of hopes for Danielle’s future. Grades 7-11. --Ann Kelley

Edition details

• Publisher: Dial Books
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0803738439
• ISBN 13: 9780803738430
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240