Lexapros and Cons

Title:

Lexapros and Cons

Author:

Aaron Karo

Subject:

Young Adult Nonfiction

Contemporary

Depression

Romance

Social Topics

Social Themes

Young Adult Fiction

Compulsive Behavior

Date:

2012-04-10

Digital Format:

HOOPLA E BOOK

Summary

Chuck Taylor's OCD has rendered him a high school outcast. His endless routines and habitual hand washing threaten to scare away both his closest friend and the amazing new girl in town. Sure he happens to share the name of the icon behind the coolest sneakers in the world, but even Chuck knows his bizarre system of wearing different color "Cons" depending on his mood is completely crazy.

In this hilariously candid debut novel from comedian Aaron Karo--who grew up with a few obsessions and compulsions of his own--very bad things are going to happen to Chuck. But maybe that's a good thing. Because with graduation looming, Chuck finds himself with one last chance to face his inner demons, defend his best friend, and win over the girl of his dreams. No matter what happens, though, he'll have to get his hands dirty.

Author Notes

In 1997 Aaron Karo wrote a funny email from his freshman dorm room that eventually spawned his celebrated column Ruminations, the humor website Ruminations.com, and three books: Ruminations on College Life , Ruminations on Twentysomething Life , and I'm Having More Fun Than You . Also a nationally headlining comedian, Karo has performed on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson , and his one-hour special Aaron Karo: The Rest Is History premiered on Comedy Central in 2010. Lexapros and Cons is his first novel.

Reviews (5)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Adult author Karo's (I'm Having More Fun Than You) background as a comedian is evident in his bawdy yet affecting YA debut, about a 17-year-old boy with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Chuck's rituals include hand-washing and using the color of his Converse high tops as a "little threat level advisory code of my emotions." His parents push him to see a psychiatrist, but when his doctor prescribes Lexapro, Chuck refuses to take it. He also swears never to tell his crush, Amy, about his OCD, but has to revaluate his choices. Karo offers a solid primer to OCD, including its treatments. Readers may find the book ends too neatly, but Chuck is a funny, honest narrator (his biggest pet peeve: people who claim to "have a little OCD," which "makes it seems like I'm a drama queen or something. I spent close to two hours last night getting in and out of bed to check the fucking stove and then go pee. That's the real deal"). Readers will be impressed with Chuck's bravery in working to solve his problems. Ages 14-up. Agent: Peter McGuigan, Foundry Literary + Media. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Horn Book Review

Seventeen-year-old Chuck Taylor has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and it's starting to ruin his life. He goes to a shrink, who puts him on Lexapro, and begins working on breaking some of his habits. Meanwhile, Chuck's making progress wooing Amy; that is, until he freaks out and scares her away. Funny, vulgar, and unique--a great combination to attract reluctant male readers. (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

High-school senior Chuck Taylor suffers from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. He has only a couple of friends, fights anxiety about his need to keep clean (among other compulsions), and feels some self-loathing for having such obsessions. Karo's problem novel has some interesting high notes: Chuck's changing relationship with his psychiatrist and the prescription drug she suggests, his romantic dreams sparked and befuddled by the beautiful new girl at school, and the well-rendered emotional lives of his friends and enemies. The story arc is predictable: boy wants girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, and in the end, boy gets girl again. Karo's use of real guy motifs is noteworthy; one of Chuck's obsessions is making a pencil tally on paper every time he masturbates, and he invents a shoe color code to reflect his moods (the shoes, of course, being Converse Chuck Taylors). This is a fairly typical teen love story that offers a humorous hook for guys who would normally shy away from the romance angle.--Goldsmith, Francisca Copyright 2010 Booklist

School Library Journal Review

Gr 10 Up-Chuck Taylor recounts the trials and triumphs of his last semester in high school. He has concerned parents and a popular but annoying sophomore sister, Beth. He also has OCD. In addition to predictable manifestations, such as frequent hand washing and fear of touching doorknobs, Chuck meticulously tallies how many times he masturbates. He owns an extensive collection of shoes that sport his name and decides which pair of Cons to wear each day by matching color to mood. When transfer student Amy asks him for help studying for the calculus AP exam, he decides to follow his psychiatrist's advice to implement cognitive behavior therapy techniques and take Lexapro. His improvement ends abruptly after disastrous incidents alienate him from both Amy and his only friend, Steve. Determined to overcome OCD on his own, he braves dirt and germs on the Senior Weekend camping trip. Using ideas from a porn flick, plus Wii boxing techniques, Steve and Chuck defeat the bully who has tormented Steve all year. Chuck finds Amy's missing dog, and Beth decides that Steve might be worth dating. Karo captures the frustration of someone with OCD and its impact on friends and family. Stock characters such as the bumbling psychiatrist and obnoxious bully provide some targets for humor. The author's success in making Chuck's character "bizarre and profane," plus his celebrity status and previous books for adults, will generate interest in the title. However, under the relentlessly raunchy language lies a fairly conventional story with all the plotlines converging in an unrealistically tidy ending. There's not much to recommend on its value as a novel.-Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State University, Mankato (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Review

Senior goofball Chuck Taylor has struggled with obsessive-compulsive disorder all his life, and his crush on the new girl in school pushes him to deal with it. Finally. When Amy Huntington walks into his calculus class, Chuck's jaw drops in pure teenage-boy lust. When she asks him to tutor him for her calculus AP exam, he knows something's up. Add his hilarious BFF Steve, who pines after Chuck's bitchy younger sister, a couple of douchey school bullies and a psychiatrist who speaks using only questions, and Karo has all the beginnings of a madcap coming-of-age first novel. For the most part Chuck's agreeably foul-mouthed narrative voice rings totally true: Everything from his laugh-out-loud repartee with Steve to his inner longing and lusting for Amy feels fully fleshed and real. There are moments when he seems too observant or too full of wisdom for his own good, but those times are few and far between. Short chapters and clever pacing help Karo's plot move quickly. Strangely enough, the only piece of this debut that feels forced is Chuck's OCD. While his instincts and reactions to triggers seem authentic, at times the descriptions of his illness feel like they're coming more from a textbook than a teenage boy. Still, Karo is definitely an author to watch. (Fiction. 14 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Excerpts

I In the past year, I masturbated exactly 468 times. That's an average of 9 times a week and 1.28 per day. I'm not sure what impresses me more, though--the fact that I jerk off so much, or the fact that I actually kept a running tally for an entire year. But I did. On a growing stack of Post-its in the drawer of my nightstand. Jerk off, make a note of it, go to sleep, routine. The thing is, routines make up a huge part of my life. Okay, well, maybe "routines" isn't the right word. I know the right word now, but for a while I didn't. Basically what happened was that on January 1st of last year, I jerked off. For some unknown, unexplainable reason, I thought to myself, I wonder how many times I do this in a year? Of course, the proper thought process for a typical, red-blooded teenager would be, I should get a girlfriend, that way I won't have to jerk off so much . But for whatever reason that's not the first thought that popped into my head. My problem wasn't January 1st, though, it was January 2nd, when I jerked off again, and then made a note of it. Once I start doing something, no matter how idiotic, I can't stop. It's all I can think about. I tried to halt the tally in mid-March but then I couldn't sleep in that post-wank, pre-checkmark state, thinking, Why not just keep the list going? You've made it so far! Then I would make the tally, feel better, and then get up to pee. I also pee a lot. The weird thing about all my "routines" is that I'm acutely aware of how crazy they are. It's not normal to get up to pee fifteen times before going to bed. I know I just peed, there could not possibly be any more urine in my bladder. I'm not gonna piss the bed; everything will be fine. But then I start to think about it until I can't help jumping out of bed and going to the bathroom. It's like if you start thinking about swallowing or breathing or blinking. Then that becomes the only thing you can think about. But eventually you forget. That's like me and peeing, except I never forget and it happens every single night. So I pee a lot. I've got a few other bad "habits." The stove--well, the stove is a fucking nightmare. If I don't check the burner thingies, I'm convinced the house is gonna burn down with me, my sister, and my parents inside. When the stove is on, a little light goes on to alert you. But what if the light breaks? There are four burner thingies; you could theoretically walk past the stove and not realize that one of the knobs wasn't set to Off. Then, let's say a dish towel fell off the refrigerator handle (which is all the way across the kitchen, but let's just say), it landed on the burner, caught fire, and the entire Taylor family died in a horrible burner-thingy accident. I'm consumed by this thought. So I check the burners and the knobs by hand. Over and over. Several times a day. My parents barely even use the stove. I masturbate more than they cook. The thing that really got me, though, was the hand washing. That's when I started to think, Man, maybe you have a problem. If my hands are dirty, I absolutely have to wash them. But my definition of dirty and your definition of dirty are probably very different. You probably wash your hands after you eat chicken wings or take a shit. I must wash my hands after touching animals, small children, public mailboxes, elevator buttons, money (especially coins), other people's hands, all food (plus salt, pepper, and condiments), and anything I consider "natural" (grass, dirt, wood, etc.). I wash my hands a lot. Sometimes it's the only thing I can think about. Like I said, the hand washing is what first got me. If you Google "I keep track of how often I masturbate," you're not gonna get a lot of hits. Well, you'll get a boatload of hits--just not anything relevant or appropriate to be displayed in a high school computer lab. But if you Google "I can't stop washing my hands," it's a whole different story. Most of the results will point to one thing. What I do are not "routines." They're compulsions. You know when you read something and you're just like, Fuck, that's me! Well once I read this thing, I knew I had it. My name is Chuck. I'm seventeen years old. And according to Wikipedia, I have OCD. Text copyright (c) 2012 by Aaron Karo Excerpted from Lexapros and Cons by Aaron Karo All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.