Review: OCDaniel

OCDaniel by Wesley King

Genre: Middle Grade, Young Adult, Mental Illness
Goodreads: Click
Purchase Link: Amazon
Pages : 304
Published April 12th 2016 by Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books

From the author of Incredible Space Raiders from Space! comes a brand-new coming-of-age story about a boy whose life revolves around hiding his obsessive compulsive disorder—until he gets a mysterious note that changes everything.

Daniel is the back-up punter for the Erie Hills Elephants. Which really means he’s the water boy. He spends football practice perfectly arranging water cups—and hoping no one notices. Actually, he spends most of his time hoping no one notices his strange habits—he calls them Zaps: avoiding writing the number four, for example, or flipping a light switch on and off dozens of times over. He hopes no one notices that he’s crazy, especially his best friend Max, and Raya, the prettiest girl in school. His life gets weirder when another girl at school, who is unkindly nicknamed Psycho Sara, notices him for the first time. She doesn’t just notice him: she seems to peer through him.

Then Daniel gets a note: “I need your help,” it says, signed, Fellow Star child—whatever that means. And suddenly Daniel, a total no one at school, is swept up in a mystery that might change everything for him.

With great voice and grand adventure, this book is about feeling different and finding those who understand.

Daniel is the backup kicker for his football team. Which really means hes the waterboy and he's just fine with that. As a water boy he can have his fix of quirks arranging things like the cups while no one is looking. Thing is this is connected on a larger scale to what he calls Zaps.If he doesn't do a certain repetition he feels he surely will die. While he is trying to hide the Zaps and look normal, the completely un-normal Psycho Sara deems him worthy talking to. Sara is on a mission to find the truth behind the disappearance of her father and is asking Daniel to help.

I've been on a mission to come across as many mental health based books lately and this was on target for what I was looking for. What I liked about this book was that it was amusing at times, it was interesting and kind of heart breaking getting to know about Daniel and his quirk and what routines he has to take to even just go to bed. I think his parents should've known something, with habits like his night routine it should've been more noticeable to the parents. I thought it was interesting seeing Daniels relationship between the characters throughout the book, how different he was to Sara and Raya. I enjoyed seeing the part of Daniel in how he temporarily stops the zaps by escaping into his fantasy world. Overall It was a pretty good book and I enjoyed it.