Devil in the Details : Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood

Rating:
Summary: A SAD, FUNNY TALE OF COMPULSION
Review: When the poet John Gay wrote that youth was the season for joys he surely did not know Jennifer Traig. Although at times the story of her young days can be funny it was far from a period of much laughter as she suffered from obsessive-compulsive behavior.

Voice performer Melinda Wade gives a fine angst ridden reading to Ms. Traig's account.

What must it have been like to live with one who from her early teenage years carried much to extremes? First there is the eating problem - she's anorexic. Probably most puzzling to her parents (one of whom is Catholic, another Jewish) is her obsession with Jewish rituals. For a young girl who to date had been not even been nominally interested in religion to suddenly take to washing all of her possessions to get rid of the smell of pork must have been a shock.

The litany of her behavior (which she relates as one might expect from a standup comic) is laughable, yet it's also very sad when one realizes she is referring to a form of mental illness. There is a name for this condition - disorder scrupulosity, which is marked by constant repetitions of religious observances whether it be prayer or hand washing.

Well read, indeed, but not a pretty story.

Rating:
Summary: Funny... but frustrating
Review: I almost never post reviews but when I read the comment below ("horrifyingly funny") I agreed so strongly it made me want to write. Having just finished the book, I thought the suggestion that future books might benefit from more emotion is right on the money, and nicely (i.e. both articulately and gently) put. Though I really appreciate that Traig was never self-pitying here - she steered well clear of the "pain club" memoir stigma - I was really wishing and hoping to see more chinks in her humor armor. I found her an intelligent narrator but never felt I really got to know her as more than a collection of behaviors--and I wanted to! (Maybe it would have helped to hear her speak more from the present, to complement the past.) After a while, I found the book exhausting--not the repetition of behaviors, which would be relevant and necessary to a portrait of OCD, but the lack of variance in tone. It basically maintained one emotional pitch throughout - sarcastic, witty, sometimes sitcomish - and (in my opinion anyway) it just felt too thin to sustain a book of this length on this topic. PW used the word "cursory"--I second that too. The one-liners are clever, articulate, punny, funny, but after a while I was craving more emotional range, some glints of acknowledgment of the seriousness and realness of what she was going through. I think it can be done subtly and without the self-pity she is trying (admirably) to avoid. Sedaris does this; his essays are laugh out loud funny but can be poignant too, without being cheesy. The scene toward the end of the book in the bathroom with her mother had a hint - just a HINT - of that quality, and I too would hope for more of it in future books, so I'm not just snickering here and there but laughing in the most satisfying way - when the humor is not just funny/clever but funny/nuanced/moving/real.

Rating:
Summary: Horrifyingly funny
Review: I happened to see Jenny Traig read in San Francisco, and picked up her book on a whim. What a treat! I can see why another reviewer found the book too harsh, but it happened to hit my funny bone just right, over and over and over again (and over. Wash your hands!). The details of her life are so sad and so terrible that all you can do is laugh hysterically at her misfortune.

One of the book jacket reviews said that the author does not lapse "even for a moment into self-pity." This is true. However, I would recommend that Ms. Traig try more for moments of genuine and sadness and joy in her next work. This book definitely stands on its own. But there are hints of real pain there - she writes that she never felt like she belonged to her family, compares her relationship with her sister to the Bible's Esau and Jacob, admits she was anorexic. While it's great to be able to squeeze humor from stuff like this, it's even greater to be able to acknowledge the real sorrow behind it too. I think the author is up to the task. I look forward to her next book.

Rating:
Summary: Funny Because It's True
Review: I laughed until I cried while reading Jennifer Traig's harrowing memoir. It is easily one of the best books to come out in 2004. Under the humor -- and there's a lot of it -- is an important story about a little-known mental disorder, scrupulosity. As a family member of a scrupulosity sufferer, I can say that Ms Traig's story rings true. What's great about her account, though, is that she manages to find humor in her story and unlike many other adolescent memoirs, does not try to over-analyze, simplify, explain or place blame.

Rating:
Summary: Better than Good...
Review: I loved this book, and continue to enjoy it everytime I pick it up. I received it as a gift through a channel of friends, all of whom read bits and pieces as it was passed down to me. We all found it funny and insightful, including my 72 year old aunt and 33 year old curmudgen of a brother.

A previous review states if you are looking for the doom and gloom that often pairs hand in hand with mental illness, to avoid this book. I guess I would agree. I, for one was grateful Jenny didn't take on a 'Woe is me!' approach, and the story was all the better knowing that she not only survived her turbulent adolecence, but came out better for it.

The best part of this book is that I felt better for having read it. I cheered for Jenny throughout and was able to relate, even if only in a very minor way, to the angst to which she would succumb. I also loved the way she always seemingly honest about her family and their struggles, without belittling or dramatizing (much!). I would love to have lunch with her mother sometime, for her wit and wisdom seems to surpass even the articulate gracefulness of her daughter. And plus, I learned of several inventive uses for Kleenex.

I would highly recommend this, and am planning on passing mine around!

Rating:
Summary: As if she was perfectly normal...
Review: I'm not sure whether the point is missed or taken by understanding that Jennifer Traig and her family did not have the easiest time - and there certainly is a lot of unwritten unhapiness in this book. And it's not just unwritten, but barely even alluded to at most anytime in Traig's writing.

Which means either she's always had a plucky sense of self even during the worst moments of OCD or she doesn't feel the need to expose her family's pain to the general public. She writes - "I'd say we bring out the best in one another, but it's more like we borrow the worst." So, she hints at her pain and allows her experience to be a laugh at herself and - maybe an apology to her family.

So, if you are looking for a book which pointedly exposes the ugliest moment's of a person's suffering from a disorder - well, this book won't deliver.

Sometimes Traig seemed to make light of her OCD and how seriously it impacted her life. I enjoyed the book simply as a wry look at a person's life who also happens to have OCD. As if it were a David Sedaris book - a humorous book that has a darker side - and not a textbook on OCD or a reality show on TV.

Rating:
Summary: The Devil is, indeed, in the Details
Review: I'm reading this book now and trying very hard to like it. The subject matter is interesting, the author's writing style is fine, but the humor strains at the seams at times. I keep running into one-liners that the author meant to be funny, but that fall flat or sound harsh instead of witty. I can practically feel the author looking over my shoulder, saying, "Wasn't that funny? Laugh. Why aren't you laughing?" I'll read the book to the end, but I find too much of the humor (and there's a lot of it) grating and forced.

Rating:
Summary: Jenny Traig Rocks!
Review: Jennifer Traig has written an obsessively funny memoir that had this former OCD sufferer in stitches! What could be better than healing neuroses with pure, wholly clean laughter? Forget hand washing. For a good time, read this book.

Rating:
Summary: I got it.
Review: Not one page I didn't think was hysterical. Jennifer didn't inherit her Judaism from her mother, but she sure did inherit mother's sense of humor. Mom sounds like she could write her own book too! I related to the era...loved the honesty. Reminds me a lot of David Sedaris...if David had been a Jewish teen with OCD. Without the OCD connection...the humor of her Jewish conversion is some of the best comedy I've read. Jennifer, embrace this genre and write more! I'll be watching for more...girl, I think you could make pumping gas funny.

Rating:
Summary: Cute but lacks substance
Review: Traig is fine with the cute and zany one liners and puns. Found she jumps around so much in the book that one minute she is eight then four then sixteen and now four again. Are we to believe that all these misfiring neurons, as she put it, conveniently realign themselves in time to enjoy a normal adulthood? She says she had OCD since childhood and that we all know now that it has a chemical basis. Was she cured through divine intervention or does she still suffer from OCD. Thats left very unclear. She repeats herself an awful lot(compulsion?)
This book could have been much shorter and if had to be as long as it is she could have cleared up the issue of whether and how she suddenly stopped having OCD.