Ayarbe, Heidi. Compulsion. New York: Balzar & Bray, 2011.
Audience: High School, 15+
Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Problem Novel
Topics of Focus: Mental Illness, Soccer, Coming of Age, Friendship, Support Systems, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Red Flags: Profanity, Teen Sexuality, Alcohol Use
If you are looking for a fun, light, adolescent problem-to-be-easily-fixed read, this is not the book. Heidi Ayarbe’s Compulsion leads a reader through her protagonist’s daily anguished obsessions, anxieties, and imprisoning strategies of prime number calculations.
Jacob Martin is a free-running, senior soccer hero on the field and a tortured soul in his number-crunching mind. On the outside, he seems to have it together, although he is known to march to the beat of a different teen social-rule drummer. On the inside, there’s a lot going on. His mother, who rarely leaves the house or her bedroom, suffers what seems to be severe clinical depression and obsessive compulsive disorder. His distant, working-class father picks up the financial slack by working double shifts for UPS while also producing woodcrafts on the side for extra money. Jacob’s sister, Kasey, has hints of obsessive compulsive disorder, as well, but her roadblocks come in the form of the typical teen focus on extreme popularity and lack of impulse control. Ayarbe’s cast of significant characters also include Jake’s former childhood friend, Mera; a clueless, yet compassionate, soccer coach; a principal who follows the rules a bit too closely; and a handful of team buddies, one of whom has his own demons to overcome in the shadow of a deceased, abusive father. Jake also is plagued by grotesque memories of a childhood trauma that never received adequate attention by medical professionals. As Jacob’s final soccer game of his high school career looms large with college scouts on the way, his carefully ordered world begins to unwind. Although Jake has created a system of routines and strategies to keep his mental illness under reasonable control, the sport’s pressure along with the unexpected moments of life (forgetting to wind his watch, a pop quiz, accidentally getting locked in a meat cooler, a surprise game celebration, excessive advances of an aggressive jock groupie) all upset the balance.
Jacob Martin is a free-running, senior soccer hero on the field and a tortured soul in his number-crunching mind. On the outside, he seems to have it together, although he is known to march to the beat of a different teen social-rule drummer. On the inside, there’s a lot going on. His mother, who rarely leaves the house or her bedroom, suffers what seems to be severe clinical depression and obsessive compulsive disorder. His distant, working-class father picks up the financial slack by working double shifts for UPS while also producing woodcrafts on the side for extra money. Jacob’s sister, Kasey, has hints of obsessive compulsive disorder, as well, but her roadblocks come in the form of the typical teen focus on extreme popularity and lack of impulse control. Ayarbe’s cast of significant characters also include Jake’s former childhood friend, Mera; a clueless, yet compassionate, soccer coach; a principal who follows the rules a bit too closely; and a handful of team buddies, one of whom has his own demons to overcome in the shadow of a deceased, abusive father. Jake also is plagued by grotesque memories of a childhood trauma that never received adequate attention by medical professionals. As Jacob’s final soccer game of his high school career looms large with college scouts on the way, his carefully ordered world begins to unwind. Although Jake has created a system of routines and strategies to keep his mental illness under reasonable control, the sport’s pressure along with the unexpected moments of life (forgetting to wind his watch, a pop quiz, accidentally getting locked in a meat cooler, a surprise game celebration, excessive advances of an aggressive jock groupie) all upset the balance.
Like Jake’s personality and routines, Ayarbe’s prose takes some patience in the reader. The calculation thoughts are awkward and intrusive at first, but once one begins to normalize them as part of the main character’s voice, they begin to fade into the rest of the prose, even as their number and intensity increases as Jake’s balance unravels. This is not a text for the common reader. One must have a significant amount of compassion for or personal connections to individuals with mental illness to undertake it. The story would be useful in a collection of other texts on different abilities or issues of mental illness. I could see it used in a family studies or sociology class. It could be given to someone who is presenting their own struggles with obsessive compulsive issues or knows someone close to them who faces such a challenge.
Annotation by Denise Aulik
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