Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Addition: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Addition: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Addition: A Novel
    Ebook245 pages4 hours

    Addition: A Novel

    By Toni Jordan

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “Often funny, always lovable, this endearing novel of obsessive compulsive disorder and romance is outstanding.”
     —Boston Globe

     

    An absolutely delightful tale of obsessive-compulsive love, Toni Jordan’s Addition is just the ticket for fans of TV’s Monk and readers who were captivated by The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. A wonderfully funny, supremely intelligent debut novel, Addition is “witty fun” (People), while OCD-afflicted heroine Grace and her new-found paramour Seamus are “thoroughly endearing characters, and their romance is sweet and fun” (Washington Post Book World).

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 6, 2009
    ISBN9780061974663
    Unavailable
    Addition: A Novel

    Related to Addition

    Related ebooks

    Romantic Comedy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Little House

      Jun 5, 2023

      On Monday nights our mother made popcorn and served it to us in mugs with milk poured over. My younger sister and I carried our mugs into the family room and ate the popcorn with spoons, like cereal. We were five and seven. Until we were allowed to s

      21 min read

    • Article

      Notes From A Hypochondriac

      Apr 2, 2020

      Notes From A Hypochondriac
      15 min read

    • Article

      Can’t Take It With You

      Apr 10, 2022

      Can’t Take It With You
      8 min read

    • Article

      A Letter To MY DAUGHTERS

      Mar 10, 2019

      A Letter To MY DAUGHTERS
      4 min read

    • Article

      It Happened to Me…

      Apr 21, 2022

      It Happened to Me…
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Space Between Us

      Oct 9, 2019

      The Space Between Us
      8 min read

    • Article

      Who Was My Mother?

      Sep 12, 2019

      Who Was My Mother?
      7 min read

    • Article

      Challenger

      Dec 1, 2019

      BEFORE DEGREE or meter or mile, my first unit of measurement was the cord: a portion of wood cut for fuel, four by four by eight, or one hundred and twenty-eight cubic feet. Eight cords equaled twenty stacks, six months, the winter buried within the

      17 min read

    • Article

      Two Years Of Solitude

      Dec 31, 2021

      Two Years Of Solitude
      12 min read

    • Article

      The Letterbox

      Apr 1, 2024

      Hi, Everybuggy!I’ve been getting Cricket for two years now and I love it. I’m a major bookworm, and some of my favorite books are The School for Good and Evil, The Hunger Games, and all the books by Judy Blume and Raina Telgemeier. Does anyone else l

      7 min read

    • Article

      Character Studies

      May 18, 2021

      Character Studies
      5 min read

    • Article

      Ribs, Muscle, Bone

      Jan 7, 2020

      Ribs, Muscle, Bone
      10 min read

    • Article

      Telling The Ancestral Tales

      Feb 12, 2021

      Telling The Ancestral Tales
      3 min read

    • Article

      Picking Up The Pieces

      May 20, 2020

      Picking Up The Pieces
      2 min read

    • Article

      Survival Mode

      Jan 12, 2022

      Survival Mode
      4 min read

    • Article

      Ghosts

      Nov 29, 2019

      Ghosts
      5 min read

    • Article

      Five Top London Authors Tell Us How They’ve Been Working From Home

      Mar 5, 2021

      Esther Freud, north London The first lockdown I was quite happy working from my house in Kentish Town because I was editing my novel and reading up on another idea I had. Then in September I started writing some short stories in the house and it felt

      6 min read

    • Article

      Living Nightmare

      Oct 1, 2019

      Living Nightmare
      4 min read

    • Article

      Why I Feel Like An Expert In DEATH

      Jun 6, 2023

      At my mother’s interment, my brother gave a eulogy by the grave. ‘Mum and Dad bought this plot on my 24th birthday,’ he said. ‘But it only came with a 50-year lease. So if I manage to survive to the age of 74, I hope I have enough savings left to buy

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Letter Box

      Feb 1, 2023

      Dear Everybuggy, This is my first time writing to the Letterbox, and I think it is going to be great! I love reading, and some of my favorite books include Blended, Out of My Mind, and Out of My Heart by Sharon M. Draper. I also like horseback riding

      7 min read

    • Article

      A Lifelong Love Affair

      Jan 2, 2024

      Christmas morning, 1959. A skinny 12-year-old kid, one normally almost impossible to get jump-started in time to get him to school before the tardy bell, bounces out of bed at the crack of dawn and thunders down the hall, like a cutting horse after a

      3 min read

    • Article

      Little Gods

      Jan 8, 2020

      Little Gods
      8 min read

    • Article

      It’s All Relative

      Aug 1, 2021

      It’s All Relative
      9 min read

    • Article

      Let Them Eat Cake

      Jun 4, 2023

      Let Them Eat Cake
      5 min read

    Reviews for Addition

    3.5/5

    245 ratings37 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Een aardig boek over een vrouw die alles "moet" tellen. Er is een relatie met het leven van uitvinder Nikola Tesla. De omgeving van Grace vindt dat ze iets moet doen aan haar manie, maar uiteindelijk voelt Grace zich het beste bij hoe ze is.
    • 3/5
      This was an ok story about a woman with obsessive compulsive disorder where she continually counts everything and sticks to an extremely strict routine. This routine is broken when she meets Seamus.
    • 3/5
      2.5 Stars

      Warning: There will be spoilers.

      Kaetrin reviewed this book a few weeks ago and it sounded interesting and unique, so I bought it. I’m glad I read it. For the most part I found it entertaining, and it has stayed with me after I finished it. But I also keep having more and more issues with it, so this review will be mixed at best.

      Grace’s life depends on number. It’s obvious to the reader that she suffers from some type of obsessive-compulsive disorder, even if she doesn’t admit it. Yet she’s quite frank about how numbers dominate her day and how she has rearranged her life to fit all the numbers in it.

      Counting, mathematics, weird trivia and numbers rule her life, but she’s comfortable and somewhat happy with it, because they also ground her. There are certain longings and thoughts that sneak in and wreak mini havocs at times, but she’s very good at keeping them at bay, so it’s hard to tell whether she’s miserable, content or happy.

      What we can tell is that Grace is her own person, and that numbers don’t define who she is. In fact, I didn’t even find her a sympathetic character. She’s not particularly nice to her mother or to her sister, and of her remaining family members she only likes one of her nieces, mostly because she projects herself onto her.

      But when she meets Seamus and they quickly develop a relationship, she begins to pay attention to all those longings and thoughts, and suddenly considers changing her life so that Seamus can fit in it. The results are not that good.

      The overall tone of the book is light and quirky. I wouldn’t call it a comedy, because it has plenty of darker undertones, but if I had to put a label to it, I would say that it fits well under Chick-Lit. It’s narrated entirely from Grace’s POV, and she has a very convoluted mind, so more than half the book is a random litany of number-related trivia, and another chunk of it is about Nikola Tesla, Grace’s hero. So there are a lot of things to learn in this book, but when it comes to the important lessons, I’m not sure that it gets it right.

      The romance plays a prominent role in the book, and Seamus was a good hero, but Grace is self-absorbed and not that observant, so Seamus’ intentions and feelings only manifest themselves when he stays by her side during some rough situations. But as sweet as the romance was, I didn’t understand why they were together. What did he see in her? What did she see in him? Were they really in love, or was it need and loneliness? I’m not sure I have the answers to all these questions. But the ending is happy, at least in terms of the romance.

      As I said before, the more I think about the book, the more issues I find. This next part will be spoilery, so look away if you don’t want to know. Grace, urged by Seamus, goes to therapy and starts taking medication. Therapy isn’t particularly successful, and the medications make her foggy and change her personality. She stops counting, but she doesn’t become more functional and her relationships rapidly deteriorate. But then she goes off the meds, gets her obsession back, her family accept her for who she is, and Seamus even apologizes for the part he played in all of it. It was uncomfortable to read, because I’m not an expert, and I know that some medications have serious effects on people, but it felt like the second half of the book was an anti-medication propaganda, and I’m not sure I agree with it.

      Mental illness has a stigma, and it’s either portrayed in a negative way or played for laughs. Grace’s disorder made her unique and special, but the moment she takes medication she becomes insignificant and average. It was too extreme, and now that we’re fighting to have a serious conversation about mental illness, this book bothered ne. Perhaps it was the wrong time to read it, but I don’t agree with the way it ended, and it left me with a bitter aftertaste that has done nothing but increase ever since I finished the book.

      That being said, I liked the risk the author took with such a different heroine, and I very much enjoyed her voice. I can’t recommend Addition, but I’m more than willing to give the author another chance, because her talent is undeniable.
    • 5/5
      Quirky study of a young woman with OCD (counting). Gentle humour around serious issues. Grace was very likeable - Seamus not so much but the reconciliation ending was hopeful. I really like Toni Jordan's writing and that the novel was set in Melbourne.
    • 4/5
      Books are supposed to make you feel, right? Sometimes you're supposed to come away optimistic about the human condition, sometimes you want to curl up in the tightest ball possible, lock your bedroom door and turn the lights out. Just because the feeling you get is bad doesn't mean the book is bad, or that it's not worthwhile.

      So when I say this book made me uncomfortable, I want the context to be preserved. I think it was its goal - to a point. Addition is the story of a woman who's very much in the grips of a counting compulsion - she knows the number of steps it takes to get from one part of her house to the other, then to the cafe, then once she's there she eats the cake she (always) orders in the same number of bits as there are poppyseeds on top. And that's one of the more normal bits.

      I don't want to give away the plot, but suffice it to say that things change (several times) once she meets The Guy. And it becomes frustrating and infuriating ... and I think that's on purpose, too? One of the great facets of the book is that in reading how the numbers affect Grace, they really start to get under the nerves of the reader. But it's not an obvious thing. I found myself affected not by the things she was counting, but by the sheer number of numbers she was keeping track of. Having to slog through every one of those numbers is analogous, I imagine - though by no means the same thing - the she was going through. I completely understood/felt like it made sense when one activity had to get called off, simply because I was so exhausted trying to keep up with the nervous counting.

      What left me short was the ending. Grace goes through a number of different phases, as we'll call them, from full-on incapacitation by counting to love-fueled powering-through to counseling to back to the way it was ... and then we get to the end. How exactly everything turns out is left up to the reader, but I found myself completely unsure if we were dealing with someone who learned to deal with their compulsion and would be moderating it, was just abandoning themselves to the compulsion devil-may-care, or what. Everything up to and including running away to London would have seemed perfectly in keeping with the character's attitudes, which made it a little frustrating. The entire piece is supposed to be a character study - why can't we learn enough about the character?

      Nonetheless, it's an excellent work that will appeal to the normal and the rest of us equally.
    • 4/5
      I love the love story between the to main characters. I was not do thrilled about the counting part but the love story was so sweet and touching it makes up for it.
    • 4/5
      This was, by turns, funny and bittersweet. It's the story of a woman with severe OCD who is torn between being her genuine self and getting help to lead a more "normal" life. It is kind of a romantic comedy but with a bit more depth. And while I found some of the details about her obsessive need to count things a little tiresome, Jordan does a good job of exploring both the limits and horizons of this kind of life.
    • 3/5
      Addition by Australian author Toni Jordan is the surprisingly charming story of Grace, who's need to count everything and to regiment her life means she can no longer work as a schoolteacher. Instead, she spends her days carefully consuming her meals in precisely the correct number of bites, of counting her footsteps and in thinking about her hero, Nikola Tesla. Then she meets Seamus, who destroys her careful scheduling in a way that she doesn't even mind. What's fun about this variation on the usual chick-lit novel is that Grace doesn't shop, she measures. And falling in love doesn't cure her, but provides a catalyst for her to work toward a less constrained existence which, in the end, may well not include Seamus at all.
    • 4/5
      Beautiful, sad, and touching. Loved it.
    • 4/5
      A wonderful debut novel, full of wit and intelligence, Grace orders her world with numbers. But something went wrong. Grace used to be a teacher, but now she's surviving on disability checks. According to one of her former student's parents, "she's mad." Only her niece Hillary can connect to her. And Grace can only connect with Nikola Tesla, the turn-of-the-century inventor whose picture sits by her bedside. Summary BPLThis was my second pass at ADDITION. Last year I found the counting bits of the story too numerous to slog through. When LibraryThing recommended it again, I decided to give it a try. It's by an Australian author after all! I still had to slog through many--not all--of the obsessive counting parts (sometimes too much can be less effective than not enough) but I was able to appreciate the way the author is able to bring the reader into the mindset of obsessive compulsive disorder.There are two Graces: the one who shields herself from the judgment of outsiders with smart and witty sarcasm (her dialogue sells the story!) and the one who forestalls the impending implosion of the world by counting. Ms Jordan's virtuosity renders both Graces believable and adorable. The Nikola Tesla sidebars supply the reader with fascinating context about obsessive compulsive behaviour as well as the history of electricity.Grace's boyfriend, Seamus, is delightfully unbelievable and adorable. This is romantic fiction after all...Members of Grace's family accommodate her needs in their own (funny) ways. Each one is a expertly delineated person within the space of a single conversation. And Ms Jordan's irreverent take on mainstream therapies for OCD produced several laugh out loud scenes.7.5 out 10 Highly recommended to readers of psychological, domestic and Australian fiction.
    • 5/5
      It was a bit disturbing coming off of reading about manic depression in Hurry Down Sunshine to start this novel and find Grace, an obsessive compulsive! But I loved the book. Grace is funny, intelligent, sexy. She makes one wonder if a cure is necessary and to ask again the ever present question of what is the real reality?
    • 4/5
      Grace,s obsession with numbers is consuming her life. It is not until a chance meeting with Seamus convinces her there could be more - or at least a compromise.Easy readingSentimental.
    • 4/5
      A love story this may be, but more importantly I found it to emphasis the importance of being one's self. Jordan takes the socially unacceptable condition of 'obsessive compulsive' and turns it into an uplifting story of Grace and her need to count. Grace has carved a nice little nich for herself, going to the same cafe, eating the same meals, counting her steps, her bananas and anything else that comes within her hemisphere.But when Seamus O'Reilly walks uninvited into her life, things change. Can Grace change too? For Seamus, she goes to therapy and takes the once shunned medication that takes away her need to count.I enjoyed every page of this book, even the obsessive meandering on Nikola Tesla, Grace's fantasy boyfriend. A great read for anyone who is wondering if OC is really as bad as we are led to believe!
    • 5/5
      “Addition” is a very funny novel. It’s also witty and clever and moving. It is insightful about OCD and also about life in general. “Addition” made me laugh (a lot, out loud), it made me cry, and it made me think. Oh, and just to round things off nicely, there were a couple of hot sex scenes. I was so sorry to reach the end that I read it again, and I hope we don’t have to wait too long before Toni Jordan writes another novel.
    • 3/5
      It is surprisingly easy to get pulled into the life of Grace Vandenburg. She made me growl when she did stupid things, and I actually laughed out loud several times. But only a 3 on my personal rating scale, mostly just because it's not really my genre.
    • 3/5
      A very interesting book by Australian author Toni Jordan about a woman's quirky life as she lives with an incessant compulsion to quantify and count the things around her life. Things take for a different turn when a different unquantifiable variable is added to her life, a man.
    • 3/5
      Addition was a bit of a disappointment. The blurb seemed to promise more than the book delivered. Grace is a number lover coping with OCD and she meets a nice man. Being a number lover myself (and also somewhat into routines, but not OCD) I thought that the numbers aspect could have been done better. The romance was sweet, and the treatment sequence frightening. Overall it was an ok book but not one I’d be in a hurry to recommend.
    • 5/5
      LOVED this book!OCD meets better than average chick-lit.Grace counts everything - obsessionally. She meets Seamus when she needs one more banana to make a complete 10 at the grocery store.Quirky, humorous, wonderful dialogue and delivery.Can't wait for more from Toni!
    • 5/5
      Fun read about a woman with a compulsive counting issue, who meets a man who throws a wench in her carefully calculated days.
    • 2/5
      Comments:This book was very different from what I expected which isn't, in itself, a bad thing. It is well-written and has good characters but I just couldn't seem to get into it.
    • 3/5
      One smart, funny, OCD sufferer who can't stop countingPlusOne sweet, lovable guy who only wants to helpEquals Addition. It's adorable.
    • 4/5
      The main character, Grace, was wonderfully realized. I liked her, I felt like I knew her, and I really cared about her story. Now, the book wasn't action-packed, and you could write it off as chick-lit, but I think that would be a mistake. Toni Jordan has created a great set of characters here. Definitely worth reading. Plus, all the counting reminds me of my mom. :)
    • 3/5
      A wonderful debut novel from Toni Jordan about Grace Vandenburg, a 35 year old lady finding love while also suffering from OCD. From an early age Grace has ‘counted’, she counts everything; the bristles on her toothbrush, the distance between her house and school or the local café, the number of items she has to buy from the supermarket and how she eats. Her daily life is determined by the routine her counting has imposed on her and into this comes Seamus, someone she falls in love with. But who or what will win out in the end? Seamus or her Counting? A light romantic comedy, told from Grace’s point of view, the characters are very believable as we find out what first started her counting and her attempt to try and stop with Seamus’ help. There are some wonderful touches in this book including Grace’s obsession with Nikola Tesla an inventor from the turn of the century and her relationship with her family and nieces. The pace to the book is very quick and interspersed with some funny observations from Grace herself about her situation that stops the story from being melancholy about a very serious illness that has cost her her job and past relationships.Ultimately a funny insight into what is obviously a very serious subject told in a believable fashion, I would recommend this book to fans of romantic comedies.
    • 4/5
      This book is billed as a "comedy that counts" on the cover. I agree it is very funny in places, and Grace is a great character. However, it's also a sad book, when you consider Grace's OCD. In this case, the problem is counting. Grace counts everything, for instance the number of poppy seeds on her orange cake dictates how many bites she will need to divide the cake into before she eats it.When she meets Seamus she finds somebody who accepts her and her quirks, but he wants to help her and suggests therapy. There follows a time when she is taking anti-depressants, which suppress the counting, but change Grace's whole character. Eventually Grace realises that she just wants to be herself, and that counting is part of that.I really felt for Grace, and could understand her behaviour to a certain extent. Many of us, myself included, have some level of OCD, and I sympathised totally with Grace's situation and feelings. She found it debilitating but it was so much a part of her life that she didn't really want to change. It was a question of finding a way of making it fit in with the rest of her life.Built into the story were details about Nikola Tesla, the man who discovered electricity, and who Grace adores. I enjoyed the facts that were thrown in about Tesla and thought he sounded like a very intriguing man.Toni Jordan has written a bittersweet book about a character finding herself and realising that she should make every second count. An excellent read that comes highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      An unconventional love story, Grace has a form of OCD that makes her count everything and ritualise her life in numbers. This makes doing anything out of the ordinary worrying, and Grace is no longer able to work as a teacher. She lives on her own in a small flat and a set routine for her daily life and limited contact with the rest of her family. The only real escape from this is in her fantasies of her hero - the maverick Szerbian scientist Nikola Tesla - also a counter, and the genius who invented radio and AC electricity. Then one day at the supermarket Grace fills her basket with all the usual items, but when she gets near the checkout she finds she is one banana short! A nice looking man close by has some, so she contrives to take one from his basket - he won't notice will he? Fortunately for her, he does and his name is Seamus. He is intrigued by this woman, asks her out and thus begins the central romance of the story. Over the book's chapters, one for each letter in Grace's full name, the author teases out Grace and Seamus's relationship, as Seamus does to Grace's family history, to try and find out the triggers for her counting. Grace is besotted and surrenders herself to Seamus totally - but it's not all plain sailing of course as Grace is forced to relive episodes in her life that she has blotted out. Grace and Seamus are both likeable characters, she's witty and surprisingly earthy, he's a great teddy bear of a man with a twinkle in his eye. They take you with them on all the ups and downs of their fledgling relationship. What does intrude slightly into the story is Grace's obsession with Tesla. Interspersed with the romance, we learn about Tesla's life, his grand projects, his great ideas, and his own obsesssions. Tesla is very much everyone's favourite mad scientist these days - he recently got more of a starring role in Samantha Hunt's orange nominated novel, a major cameo in The Prestige by Christopher Priest, (both of which I really enjoyed), as well as popping up in An Abundance of Katherines by John Green - a YA novel which I've yet to read. All these books featuring him just make me want to go and read their source material - notably biographies of the man by Margaret Cheney and Mark J Seifer. All that said, I really enjoyed this novel. The author, an Australian, writes directly with great wit and handles the aspects of mental health within robustly yet with understanding She is also capable of bringing a tear to my eye, and I was sorry when it ended.
    • 4/5
      This novel was written from the point of view of the protagonist with OCD. She explains how she thinks and how counting and numbers rule her existence. Very inciteful about the condition and how some people live with it. The romance is delightful also. One comes to the conclusion that all people should be celebrated for who they are, and instead of trying to change them we should try to understand people with mental disorders. A very enjoyable read!
    • 4/5
      Addition is a witty romantic comedy. The main character, Grace, has an obsessive compulsion to count everything – and it has interfered with life in a big way. Then she meets Seamus, and they try to figure out how to build a relationship. The book is at turns insightful, funny, and touching. The first couple of chapters set the stage for a “counter’s life”. They are kind of tedious and boring. But stick with it! By the third chapter, the plot begins and Grace becomes much, much more interesting. By the middle of the book, you’ll find yourself snickering as you read. Grace has a wonderful dry sense of humor, and is happy to share her satirical thoughts with the reader. The conclusion fits well with the rest of the story. This book started as 2 or 3 star for me, but finished as a solid 4 stars.
    • 4/5
      I picked up Addition by australian author Toni Jordan for many reasons; the colorful cover reminded me of the upcoming spring, I was in the mood for a light read and the back cover’s descriptions seemed like something I would enjoy. Happily for me, I can say I haven’t been disappointed.* * * *Description taken from the author’s website :"Grace Lisa Vandenburg counts. The letters in her name (19). The steps she takes every morning to the local café (920); the number of poppy seeds on her slice of orange cake, which dictates the number of bites she’ll take to finish it. Grace counts everything, because numbers hold the world together. And she needs to keep an eye on how they’re doing.Seamus Joseph O’Reilly (also a 19, with the sexiest hands Grace has ever seen) thinks she might be better off without the counting. If she could hold down a job, say. Or open her kitchen cupboards without conducting an inventory, or make a sandwich containing an unknown number of sprouts.Grace’s problem is that Seamus doesn’t count. Her other problem is…he does."* * * *Addition is a short read, and Grace was easy to get attached to. Her counting doesn’t get in the way of her sense of humor, and I enjoyed watching her fall in love. While she tells her life through numbers, the reader gets a sense of how controlled is her existence, from the time she wakes up to what she cooks up for dinner. We get to see through her eyes, and while her perception is mostly different, she is also very aware that “counting” isn’t something “normal.”The story isn’t an in-depth observation of mental illness and its consequences, but it does focus more on Grace’s mental condition than on her romance with Seamus. The author talks with insight of healing and treatment, the text being the occasion to pop up some good questions; does Grace need to be treated and changed? Or does she only needs to learn how to live the way she is?In short, this was a book I enjoyed; a 258 pages ”chick lit” with an out of the ordinary lead character.
    • 4/5
      A nice quick little 'chick lit' read. This one sets itself apart with its unusual leading lady - an obsessive compulsive 30-something 'counter' called Grace. The gentle romance blossoming in the background takes second place to the turbulent inner workings of Grace's mind as she obsessively counts and measures out every aspect of her day to day life, from visiting the local cafe at exactly the same time each day, to making sure she knows the exact number of cotton wool balls in her bathroom. When she meets Seamus she realises she is sick of being held prisoner by her routines and starts therapy for her complex issues.This book is definitely more of a commentary on mental health than it is a romance. Much of Grace's day to day life is filtered through her OCD and her quirky take on the world around her. The life of the Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla is quite extensively explored - as a famous inventor and fellow 'counter', he is Grace's hero and one of her little obsessions. When Grace's treatment begins the bizarre world of her group sessions becomes a key focus of the book, and it is tangible the way the drug treatment changes her body and mind into a shadow of what they once were.It is an absorbing book, pulling the reader into the mind of an obsessive compulsive - Jordan has obviously done her research on OCD, and the statistics and random information swirling in Grace's thoughts are quite fascinating too. The impact of her problems on her family and close relationships is also well explored. The end of the book is a bit haphazard and rather unsatisfying, but nevertheless I would recommend this purely on the strength of its unique take on an often cliched genre.
    • 4/5
      Could a chick-lit romance centering on a mentally ill woman be funny and succeed as a romance? In the case of Toni Jordan's Addition, yes! Grace, whose life is on hold due to her obsession with numbers and counting, meets Seamus when she nicks his lone banana while waiting in line at the grocery store to make up to the perfect number 10. The relationship blossoms and Grace faces the need to enter therapy. Medication soon resolves Grace's OCD--but is she still Grace? Will Seamus still love her? Will she still love herself? Can she overcome mental illness and find true happiness?