Description
An engaging YA novel about a girl in treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder that combats the dehumanizing stigma around mental illness
Sixteen-year-old Mira Durand has just been checked into the secure unit of the Residency Adolescent Treatment Centre for obsessive compulsive and comorbid disorders. Four years of being passed around different psych wards like a hot potato have only worsened her OCD and anorexia. Her brutal, religious compulsions, which she believes keep her mom safe, make her less of a clean freak and more of a freak freak. No wonder her only friend is her journal.
At the Residency's Ward 2, Mira discovers that her shrink is a fellow fantasy nerd and that her wardmates have enough of their own high-risk behaviors to tolerate hers. The complex friendships she forms with them (including a first love), the slow trust she builds with her treatment team, and the outside and family visits she earns give her things to look forward to beyond the drudgery of her compulsions. But it takes visiting Gung Gung, her dying maternal grandfather, for her to realize that to truly live, she must fight the cognitive distortions at the heart of her compulsions.
Based on the author's personal experience, A Drop in the Ocean is a gritty, humanizing portrait of living with mental illness.
Author: Lea Taranto
Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
Published: 05/20/2025
Pages: 296
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 7.87h x 5.98w x 0.87d
ISBN13: 9781551529813
ISBN10: 1551529815
BISAC Categories:
- Young Adult Fiction | Social Themes | Mental Illness
- Young Adult Fiction | Asian American & Pacific Islander
- Young Adult Fiction | Coming of Age
About the Author
Léa Taranto is a disabled Chinese Jewish Canadian writer who lives with OCD and comorbid disorders. An MFA graduate of the University of British Columbia, alumnus of Simon Fraser University Writer's Studio, and member of PRISM International's poetry board, she resides on traditional, unceded Halkomelem and Squamish territories in BC.