Book Review: ONE OF US HAS TO GO by Katja Schulz

Drawn together as young classmates, Finja and Sonja fast became soulmates. They provide each other with a safe haven when everyone else hurts them or lets them down. Whether its parents, friends, or life itself that deals a hard blow, they always have each other. But Finja’s friendship with Sonja comes at a cost. She is as much bound to Sonja’s relentless, life-restricting rules as Sonja is. Forced to flee Germany, their home country, because of Sonja, Finja can never settle, never feel at home anywhere, and can never be free.

Their sweet friendship has become a toxic co-dependency. Now Sonja is threatening the most important relationship in Finja’s life outside of Sonja.

Finja has two options: keep bending to Sonja’s will and relinquish all control of her own life, or get rid of Sonja.

As it says on the cover, this novel is based on a true story, namely the author’s own struggles with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). It is an attempt to convey what it’s like to live with what can be a debilitating affliction through the medium of a novel. A few years ago I reviewed THE LAST LETTER by Susan Pogorzelski, which used fiction to help readers understand Lyme Disease. There have been numerous other novels that have made powerful use of storytelling to help non-suffers understand what it’s like to live with various mental and physical disorders. It’s a valid and often successful way to bring cold science and statistics to life. Katja’s book is no exception to this.

There are two threads to the story, one present day where Finja is reaching a tipping point with Sonja, and another where we flash back to the past recalling how the two met and the events that led to the present situation. At first theirs seems like a close and loving friendship where the two girls care deeply for one another. But it becomes clear that Sonja is the one in control. Katja does a great job conveying the extent to which Sonja and her OCD dominate Finja, who feels increasingly as if she cannot walk away from her friend. And her friend ends up manipulating Finja to bind her to her oppressive routines.

The pair end up traveling to a couple of different countries in Europe, largely thanks to Sonja’s OCD, and her need to be far away from people who are “dirty.” For Sonja, the “dirtiness” of those people is like an infectious disease so that everything they touch, and everywhere they go or ever have been is contaminated. Sonja’s elaborate washing rituals to avoid being infected are hard to imagine, but that’s the point. Those of us who have little or no experience with OCD often don’t appreciate how extreme it can be. We can’t conceive of going to those kinds of lengths simply because we visited a place where a “dirty” person had been. Even times and dates can become “dirty.” These cleansing routines feel more than a burden. They are shackles that bind Sonja, and Katja does well to make us feel Sonja’s bondage to her illness.

There are a couple of minor issues I have with the novel. English is not Katja’s first language, and in light of that she is to be commended for writing in a way that communicates her story well. There were only a couple of times where the wording was a little confusing, and none of those occasions affected my appreciation of the story. However, there are times, especially when Katja uses English idioms or analogies, where the language doesn’t feel quite right. Either the application of terms isn’t quite on the mark, or it sounds slightly unnatural. A bit like a good copy of a painting that you can still, nevertheless, tell is a copy. Again, this is not to take away from the achievement of writing a novel in a second language, which I think, on the whole, Katja managed successfully.

The other minor issue I have concerns the ending. I don’t want to spoil it for you, so suffice to say I think Katja said too much at the end. She explains the relationship between Finja and Sonja, and I don’t think she needed to. Indeed, I think she could have finished the novel with Finja walking away. If you’ve read the novel, hopefully you know what I mean by that. If you haven’t read the novel, read it and you’ll understand.

If your only exposure to OCD is through characters on television, or popular stereotypes, you really should read this novel. And if you have loved ones or close friends who suffer with OCD, this novel may help you understand better what they’re going through.

I would rate this novel PG-15, borderline R, for a few f-words and sexual situations. And I give it a solid four Goodreads stars. Well worth your time.