Every Last Word

Author: Tamara Ireland Stone
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Publishing date: 2015
Pages: 355

Samantha McAllister has been a part of a popular group of friends since she was little. From the outside, her life looks as perfectly put together as her visage, but she keeps a big secret from everyone. She has Purely-Obsessional OCD that her toxic friends make even harder to deal with day by day. That is until she finds a new friend Caroline who introduces her to a bunch of new people that seem much nicer than her actual friends. Samantha's horizon suddenly grows bigger and brighter with the new people around, and she starts to be able to breathe more. With them, she might be able to start feeling normal regardless her medical condition...

I've been introduced to Tamara Ireland Stone's enchanting writing more than five years ago when I read her debut novel Time Between Us, which I absolutely loved. And whereas that book is quite underrated, Every Last Word is very well known and appreciated among readers. So when I started to read it, I was pretty much certain I was up to something amazing. And amazing it was.

"Mistakes. Trial and error. Same thing. Mistakes are how we learned to walk and run and that hot things burn when you touch them. You’ve made mistakes all your life and you’re going to keep making them."

The thing I loved the most about this book was the fact that I could relate to the main character on a very high level. I haven't experienced some of the very traumatic events caused by her OCD, but her mind felt very similar to mine. I've never read a book before, in which the main character would struggle with the same kinds of toxic toughts as usually crawls trough my own head, which is probably the reason I was able to connect with this book in such a personal way. It was also very inspiring to see the growth of the main character throughout the book. But not only the main character kept me reading the book without a break, all of the other characters described in the book were equally unique and interesting to learn about. Tamara Ireland Stone's books are always very much character driven, which is something I really enjoy and apprecite in literature. And she's exceptionally good at connecting them with one another. The relationships established in her stories are so satisfying to read about.

Every Last Word is a beautiful heartfelt novel about friendship, love and the struggles of becoming your true self. It's a book that will keep you at the edge of your seat, despreatly wanting to finish the whole thing at once in order to know the ending, but at the same time you will be enticed to read it ever so slowly to be able to absorb every single word in your own time. Tamara Ireland Stone definitely has a way with her words - she can string them together in a way that makes you feel and think all the more intensely. Her books are definitely the right ones to read when in reading slump; they will make you fall in love with literature all over again. She also does love stories like nobody else. When I read her books I can remember all the girl's heart dreams I once had. And I'm really grateful to her for that...