ARIEL CRASHES A TRAIN

Vulnerability and openness may hold the key to survival for a teenager struggling with violent, intrusive thoughts.

Without best friend Leah there, Ariel’s usual summer job at Wildwood carnival just feels scary and unfamiliar. To make matters worse, Ariel’s sister, Mandy, is away at college, leaving Ariel to bear the full brunt of their parents’ disappointments and her own violent, aggressive thoughts, which continue to escalate. Though she tries to mask her internal struggles to cope with her heightened ritualistic behaviors, things reach a fever pitch—until Mandy shares information about intrusive thoughts and OCD, and Ariel, a white lesbian, begins to suspect that’s what she’s suffering from. Having parents who aren’t supportive of therapy means she’s left to find ways to manage until she can seek out treatment on her own, but Mandy, along with new Wildwood friends Ruth (who's Black) and Rex (who's trans and reads white), prove to be lifelines. Immersive dialogue and realistic emotions lend a sense of intimacy to the narrative; as Ariel begins to accept that her thoughts do not make her a monster, she also begins to accept her tall, muscular frame and non-feminine gender presentation, too. The verse format provides readers with the space that Ariel desperately craves from her uncontrollable thoughts, balancing out the density and weight of the subject matter.

A revelatory, razor-sharp, and powerfully honest depiction of the reality of living with OCD.