Andrea Kayne Kaufman

What we are given is OCD and hand sanitizer-ruled Gloria Zimmerman’s life. She knows academic achievements that includes a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University. Here she meets Henry Young, an indifferent music student and son of a don of Jesus College. They are "loomates" (share a bathroom in the dorm) and in spite of Gloria’s demons that include the personification of her illness – a voice that resides in her head named Oliver -- and Henry’s crippling underachievement, they are destined to become the best things that ever happened to each other.

The novel is full of pop musical references, primarily to Van Morrison (not Jim) as well as feminist poetry of the early-mid 20th C. Poets – Plath and Teasedale. It’s also full of psychosomatic and anti-AIDS drugs.

At times the voice of Oliver seems to take over the novel, turning it into a horror story rather than a dramatic romance that it’s intended to be. At other times, the frequent mentioning of pharmaceuticals just about drowns the plot in this tightly set novel tht mostly takes place in the shared living quarters of Gloria and Henry who persist in fatalistic optimism and eventually triumph.

Liked the book enough to finish it and be interested to the end. Not great, but entertaining and informative about pop music and the lives of Oxford graduate students.… (mehr)

“Oxford Messed Up: A Novel” tells the love story of Gloria Zimmerman and Henry Young, who meet at Oxford University in London. Gloria comes to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in Women’s Poetry and brings along her Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), anxiety and love of Van Morrison’s music. Henry is at Oxford to earn a Graduate degree in Music after surviving drug addiction, years of inactivity and a devote follower of Van Morrison.

Henry and Gloria meet because they are roommates who also share a bathroom, otherwise known as a/the “loo”. At first they don’t get along because Gloria is OCD about cleaning the "loo", two times a day or more and her general fear of people and their germs and Henry is a slob. Soon they both realize that they have problems and agree to help each other out, Gloria with her OCD and Henry with his Music thesis.

The beginning of the book was slightly boring for me but I kept on reading and it was worth it. The middle chapters give a good understanding of where Gloria and Henry came from and how/why their disorders started. “Oxford Messed Up” starts to become a real page-turner when Henry and Gloria finally get together.

Andrea K. Kaufman tells a beautiful love story between two people but it almost seems to be too perfect and predictable. Kaufmann did a excellent job with the characters and their development. I felt for Henry and Gloria after each turn of the page and wanted them to just find happiness. I was expecting a little more background and information on OCD than that of a love story but I still enjoyed the book. The beginning chapters could use a re-write and a tightening up of sorts so they aren’t so boring. For a first time novelist this book was great and I would definitely recommend it to others.… (mehr)