Eye Contact, by Cammie McGovern

Adam, a nine-year-old boy with autism, disappears into the woods with a 10-year-old girl from his special ed class. Adam is eventually found alive, but the girl has been murdered. The police try to get Adam to tell them what happened, but he has retreated into himself more than ever as he tries to make sense of what he's just experienced. Occasionally a clue is able to be pulled from the traumatized autistic boy, but to find the truth the entire community must decode clues found in the woods, in the schools, and in their own lives.

I started to relate the plot of this story to one of my co-workers. He stopped me before I got too far. "This isn't exactly an uplifting story, is it?" I hadn't even gotten to some of the more disturbing scenes. So no, this isn't a warm fuzzy, touchy feely kind of book, but it's not nearly as dark as the events of the book could have made it. There is some positive balance from the caring relationship between Adam and his mother, along with several other sets of oddly supportive relationships. One of the main themes of the book is that love and hope persist even through trials, regardless of whether the trials were created by fate or by our own poor choices. Sometimes that love and hope will only survive when we deliberately force it to.

It was an interesting book with some interesting messages. The autistic boy was portrayed very realistically. In spite of those positives, I'm not ecstatic over this one. There were too many loose ends in the plot, too many requests for the reader to suspend disbelief, too few characters without major problems. The writing style also seemed awkward to me. Sometimes you weren't sure if you were supposed to be in a character's head or watching the character from above. The verb tense kept inexplicably switching from past to present tense too.

3 Stars

Mystic and Rider, by Sharon Shinn

Mystic and Rider is the first in the Saga of the Twelve Houses series. It is set in the land of Gillengaria, a country divided into twelve regions, each of which is ruled by a different noble house. The king has sent a group to investigate the unrest that seems to be growing in Gillengaria. What follows is a tale of political intrigue and religious conflict.

This is the third Sharon Shinn novel I've read. The first was The Safe-Keeper's Secret, which I reviewed earlier. The second was The Truth-Teller's Tale, set in the same world as the first, with much the same feel. Mystic and Rider, on the other hand, has a completely different feel. Where the magic of the other series is subtle, this book has people throwing fireballs and morphing into mountain lions. Pretty in-your-face stuff. And it features the standard cross-country trek found in so many other fantasy novels. In short, this has none of what made the other two books stand out to me.

Fortunately, Mystic is special in its own right. The conflict of choice versus destiny is emphasized throughout the book, as are the themes of tolerance and loyalty. I enjoyed how skillfully they were woven into the story without taking over. Also, the plot seems to be interesting enough to hold up through an entire series, with plenty of opportunities for unexpected twists and turns.

Because this is the first book in a series, a lot of questions were left unanswered. Those unanswered questions lend an air of mystery to the story, but they also leave you hanging at the end. I guess that's OK, but don't expect this book to satisfy you on its own. Unless you hate this first book, you will want to read the next in the series to find out how things are resolved.

4 Stars

The Safe-Keeper's Secret, by Sharon Shinn

If you're looking for a book that doesn't stray too far from the conventions most fantasy books seem to follow, yet isn't a clone of every other fantasy novel out there, this would be a good choice.

The world of The Safe-Keeper's Secret is only a step away from what could be reality. Magic is an inherent part of people's lives, but it is subtle. In fact most magic could be chalked up to chance or even differences in personality. For example, there are truth-tellers who always speak the truth. Nothing overly magical about that, except that they occasionally reveal the truth about things they could not possibly have known. The complement of the truth-teller is the safe-keeper, who listens to secrets of all kinds and keeps them secret for as long as they need to be kept.

Damiana, the safe-keeper of Tambleham village, has a doozie of a secret to keep – the identity of the baby dropped off in the middle of the night to be raised as her own child. You don't learn the truth until the very end of the book.

Overall the plot was reasonably good, but what really stood out for me was the setting. I enjoyed reading a fantasy book based on family dynamics rather than on epic travels through far away lands. In fact most of the story takes place in or near Damiana's cottage. You won't find any battles with dragons in this book's pages, but you will find a compelling coming of age story with an emphasis on people and relationships.

4 Stars

Clay, by Colby Rodowski

This is a book about kids in crisis. Elsie and her younger brother, Tommy, are abducted by their non-custodial parent. Elsie is pulled in so many directions as she balances her love and loyalty to each of her parents, responsibility for her brother, the desire to be a normal kid, and the battle to find her own identity.

Without a doubt, this book is written for kids - the writing style and the predictability of the plot fall right in line with most fifth grade readers. But the subject matter, the realistic circumstances, and the raw emotion of the book are far from standard pre-teen fare, so much so that I could only recommend it to a ten year old if she's got the disposition and the opportunity to talk about the story with an appropriate adult. It just seems odd to me to find a book written for an audience too young to understand the inner turmoil churning inside the main character.

The younger brother in the book is autistic. As you might have guessed, that's what led me to the book in the first place. The book doesn't really address autism though, except as a plot device.

I ought to give this book high marks. After all, I cried at least three times while I was reading, and I'm definitely glad I read it. For reasons I can't quite put my finger on, I don't feel like I can rate the book better than three stars. I think it's because by the time you are old enough to grasp the full weight of Elsie's struggles you're too old for the predictable plot.

3 Stars

Making Peace with Autism, by Susan Senator

The full title of this excellent book is Making Peace with Autism: One Family's Story of Struggle, Discovery, and Unexpected Gifts. The author, Susan Senator, relates the experiences of her family, which includes herself, her husband, and their three sons. The oldest of these three sons, Nat, has autism. Ms. Senator gives us an authentic, honest view of her family as they learn to cope with – and love – their autistic son and brother.

What I most appreciate about this book is that it neither sugar coats nor sensationalizes the difficulties they have faced. I'm also glad that Ms. Senator gives equal emphasis to the happiness they have experienced. She shares feelings of depression and self-doubt (which must be difficult to do as openly as she does), but also shares feelings of hope and even triumph as she, Nat, and the rest of their family reach milestones and move past them. By faithfully describing both the joy and the pain, she has avoided writing a flat history. Instead, she has created a credible, emotional memoir with substance and depth, one that feels real.

Yet another great aspect of this book is that, despite the atypical struggles autism has forced upon them, Ms. Senator and her family seem very normal (although I wonder how she'd react to hearing her family described as normal - as a compliment, I suspect). The author isn't on a crusade for any particular miracle cure, doesn't preach any specific treatment, doesn't impose shame on the reader for not following a particular autism dogma. After so many books with an agenda, it's refreshing to read something not written by an extremist.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know what it feels like to parent a child with exceptional needs. For those who already know how it feels, you'll see yourself in this book's pages again and again.

An enthusiastic 5 stars

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon

Now here's an interesting book. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a work of fiction written as a first-person narrative, as if you were privy to the private writings of some real-world person. First-person narratives are not exactly new. From Dracula to Flowers for Algernon to Life of Pi, the technique has been used time and time again to give the work a more realistic feel. What makes this book unique is the character doing the narration, an autistic teenager named Christopher Boone.

Because he is afflicted with autism, Christopher is not your typical boy next door. He just doesn't "get" the social world, and probably won't catch the full meaning of what you say to him. He only understands the literal and the logical, and yet much of his reaction to the world around him is driven by superstition, and a very odd set of superstitions at that. He is easily overwhelmed by noise, crowds, or just about any other type of stimulation, which he copes with by curling up in a ball and moaning. And do not try to touch him.

When this severely challenged boy happens upon a dead dog with a pitchfork sticking out of it, he is understandably upset. When Christopher is then accused of killing the dog he is thrown into the role of a modern-day Sherlock Holmes with a partially malfunctioning brain. His quest to identify the dog's true murderer takes him far beyond his familiar world. For Christopher, that's a big deal.

He tells his tale as an autistic train of thought, complete with barely relevant details, lengthy tangents, and atypical conclusions. It's a fascinating view of the world through a different set of eyes. Some of the most dramatic moments in the book are scenes where Christopher's viewpoint and the reader's viewpoint are noticeably different. The ending is perhaps the strongest of those moments. Several people's lives have been turned completely upside down, but Christopher honestly believes everything is back to normal and OK again. To Christopher, things have been resolved. It's only the reader who realizes how unresolved and out of balance things still are. The dichotomy will leave you feeling satisfyingly unsettled.

I've got a couple of suggestions to help you enjoy this book. First, you've got to accept that the events of the book are nothing more than a context in which to watch Christopher. By the middle of the book the actual plot line has become predictable, but Christopher himself has become an absolutely enthralling character to observe. You often know what's going to happen next, but Christopher's reaction is much harder to guess.

Second, learn a little about autism before you read the book. You are much more likely to pick up on the subtleties that way. Based on what I've read in some negative reviews of this book, Christopher's oddities are just plain irritating unless you have some clue as to why he is the way he is. Someone who understands how difficult it is for an autistic individual to distinguish between the significant and the trivial, for example, will find that Christopher's detailed explanations of vaguely related topics are not only interesting in their own right, but also serve as character development. Readers without that understanding will wonder why the author just wasted two pages. A little background goes a long way toward enjoying the book and toward developing empathy for Christopher.

There are quite a few F-bombs scattered throughout the book. If that's something you care about, consider yourself warned.

It's natural to compare The Curious Incident with a book I mentioned earlier, the classic we all read in junior high, Flowers for Algernon. Both books are told through the eyes of a young man with cognitive defects. They share many common themes. But rest assured that these are two very different books. It's certainly possible that Mark Haddon was influenced by Algernon, but The Curious Incident cannot be remotely considered a copy of the former. Not only do the plots and writing styles differ significantly, but the two works have completely different core purposes. Algernon is primarily a social commentary, while The Curious Incident is primarily a character study.

I highly recommend this book. Be prepared to either love it or hate it.

4 Stars