'A stylish, witty and moving love story.'
- Sigrid Thornton

Grace Lisa Vandenburg counts.
The letters in her name (19). The steps she takes every morning to the local café (920); the number of poppy seeds on her slice of orange cake, which dictates the number of bites she'll take to finish it. Grace counts everything, because numbers hold the world together. And she needs to keep an eye on how they're doing.

Seamus Joseph O'Reilly (also a 19, with the sexiest hands Grace has ever seen) thinks she might be better off without the counting. If she could hold down a job, say. Or open her kitchen cupboards without conducting an inventory, or make a sandwich containing an unknown number of sprouts.

Grace's problem is that Seamus doesn't count.

Her other problem is...he does.

Addition is a fabulous debut novel. Grace is witty, flirtatious and headstrong. She's not a bit sentimental but even so, she may be about to lose track of the number of ways she can fall in love.

(the picture on my cover differs from the one shown here)

i loved it loved it loved it

such a different novel about a woman with o c d, something which i don't think has been covered much in fiction, so this is great

when grace's life started to spiral (downwards) she knew what needed to be done (with her clock/time setting), but was unable to do it herself nor able to communicate it to others
her budding relationship with seamus and the effects of the medication were well written and grace's search for inner & outer balance to me is the key to this story

this book was long listed for the miles franklin award, but sadly has missed out on the shortlist - i think it should have made the shortlist - as a piece of work i found it much better than the books which remain on the shortlist

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

a wishlist book off to L1nda to enjoy

;-)

Thanks for the surprise!

What a fabulous book! I really loved the character of Grace, she was smart and funny and very likable.

Thanks for the opportunity to read this LadyIndigo!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Releasing into the 3kg bag with The White Queen Bookring Plus!

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/7574955

This one hitched a ride with The White Queen. An OCD-romance? Sounds worth a look.

An original and engaging love story by a fabulous Aussie author. I've lived with autism (through relatives and friends) but not OCD, and this was a generous and sensitive look at how a person with those issues deals with life and love.

Highly recommended!

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

If you should find this book and you're new to BookCrossing - WELCOME! You have found not only a book but a community of booklovers dedicated to sharing books. You can remain anonymous but if you are interested in joining please use Melanie2474 as your referrer.

I hope that you will write a journal entry letting me know that this book has been found. Once you've read this book, feel free to keep it or pass it on to a friend or set it out "in the wild" for someone else to find like you did.

I do volunteer work at the Red Cross Blood Bank in Canberra and found this book while there. I had heard of these free books to read and pass on, but this is the first I have seen. It is not the type of book that I would normally read, but I like the idea of books going from place to place, so I plan to read it and then find somewhere to leave it to be found by someone else. I may like it. I also may register and leave some other books.

In the first chapter I almost stopped reading this book, but I pushed on and enjoyed it. However I cannot score it as high as the previous readers did. Grace’s sarcasm was at first funny, but after a while it became tiresome. I found the therapy sessions a caricature, but this was no doubt the author’s intention. The writing is good, better than some other first time authors I have read. I liked the touch that Grace’s mother also suffered OCD, indicating a genetic link.
Years ago I lived in a group house where one of the people suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder. I think one of her compulsions was counting, although she would never have admitted it. When she got up in the morning she would wake the house by foot stopping her way to the bathroom and then stomping her feet in the shower. The number seemed similar each time. (I didn’t count them.) She ignored complaints and didn’t stop. Probably couldn’t. Her other thing was cleaning. I can remember her wiping down around me while I cooked and putting newspaper on the kitchen floor under my feet. And yes, I do clean up, but she couldn’t wait until I had finished cooking. The positive side is our house was always clean. When she moved out and into her own place she developed other characteristics.
I also thought of Aspergers Syndrome rather than OCD in regard to some of Grace’s behaviour; her fixation on Tesla, her routines. But she did relate to people. The book reminded me of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time".

Cycled to the Canberra BookCrossing meet at King O'Malley's Pub in Civic, ACT, and passed the book onto Elddau1.

Received with many thanks from maya2524 [now known as goldenwattle] at her first BC Canberra get-together on 27 Feb.
(Sorry haven't been able to journal before now - new house, no phone/internet.)
Welcome to BookCrossing! It was great to meet you finally.

And I see a veritable rogues gallery of BCers for this book before me. *Hand waving*. Hi LadyIndigo and Melanie2474!

I'm looking forward to reading this as I loved The Curious Incident of the Dog etc. It reminds me of that movie with Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt...

Rating: 7.5-8*
This was a good read, though it took me a while to warm up to Grace, the main character. Her counting and the detail at the beginning was tedious, though I know it was essential to get a feel for her illness. But once the story moved past that I started to enjoy the book.
It was well written and real. Some moments were very familiar. Grace is quirky and funny, if not really likeable for me. (Still not sure why Seamus would want to live with Grace, it's tedious and intense.) But I’m glad it looked like Grace was going to get better in the future. It was a good story and overall I enjoyed it.

Sending in the next couple of days to nikkilovesbooks in the NT who has this on her wishlist.
Cheers and Happy Reading!

This book looks wonderful. Cannot wait to get into it. I enjoyed reading all of the journal entries for this one :)
Hi to LadyIndigo.
Thanks so much!!

After reading & passing it around to quite a few friends, I thought I'd release this one today. Hopefully it will find a new home & someone else to enjoy this lovely story :)