Kissing Doorknobs

What is the author's style in Kissing Doorknobs by Terry Spencer Hesser?

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Kissing Doorknobs is told by Tara Sullivan, a young girl who has obsessive compulsive disorder. She describes her condition as a series of nonsensical imperatives that she feels compelled to complete, whether it is repeating Step on a crack, break your mother's back, counting sidewalk cracks, praying, or performing rituals. She is slightly humorous and slightly pathetic as she describes her family's reaction to these rituals, and she is even sympathetic with her parents' exasperation since she is exasperated herself. Nonetheless, she thinks of herself as innocent in terms of these habits and wishes she could get them to stop. The story comes from her beleaguered position. She is a slightly self-deprecatory narrator, but her self-deprecatory tone comes from her ignorance of her own condition.

The novel proceeds in largely linear fashion, although it starts in fifth grade, then goes back to earlier times in Tara's childhood, before it picks up again, and proceeds in a straight line to the end of the book, when Tara is fourteen. At the end, the novel does jump ahead by six months, to give the reader some distance from Tara's obsessive behavior and give her a chance to be herself, the girl she knew herself as before the tyrants took over her head. In this sense, the book is also a coming-of-age narrative. It follows Tara back to herself, but it also follows her into new territory, as she gains power over herself and her fears.

Source(s)

Kissing Doorknobs, BookRags