Kissing Doorknobs by Terry Hesser 1-150

Kissing Doorknobs by Terry Spencer Hesser is about a teenage girl that slowly develops O.C.D, or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.She is "driven to Hail Mary every time she hears a cuss word", and she has to "touch the doorknob and then push her fingers to her lips 33 times before she can leave the house." This book is funny yet still serious as you get to follow and understand how the disorder slowly takes over the main character; Tara.

At this part of the book (actually the opening paragraphs) Tara is hearing the childhood rhyme "step on a crack and you break your mother's back!" This is what first triggers her OCD.

"Step on a crack, break your mother's back! The first time I heard
that stupid rhyme was when I was eleven years old and still in possession of my
own thoughts.
At first I thought the rhyme was stupid. Step on a crack, break your
mother's back! When I couldn't get it out of my head, I thought it
was annoying.Step on a crack, break your mother's back! Finally I
thought it was scary. But no matter what I thought about it, I couldn't stop
thinking it. Actually, it was more as if I couldn't stop hearing it in my head
over and over again."pg.1

This passage made me remember the guilt and sorrow it caused me every time I stepped on a crack when I was 8 years old; I couldn't help but think that it could possibly happen, and the fact that I would do it deliberately would fill me with guilt. But I also find the actual placement of the phrase in the paragraphs. It made it seem like she was actually involuntarily thinking about the phrase as she was telling the story as her problem caused her to do.