58. Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

listened on Libby

387 pgs.

2023
Adult mystery
Finished 6/23/24
Goodreads rating: 3.75
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Washington DC outskirts

My comments: Mia, from a Korean American family has a 20-year-old twin brother and a 13-year old autistic brother who cannot speak or communicate in any way.  The book starts with the stay-at-home father/caregiver taking Eugene on his daily walk to the park and never returning.  The entire book is based on trying to figure out what happened to the dad.  Did he leave?  Did he die?  If he did, where is he?  Eugene knows, but he can't communicate it.  Mia, the not-really likeable protagonist did start to grow on me a bit well into the book.  I loved the first half of the book, but the second half became more and more philosophical, which I really do dislike (in a book or in real life conversation, lol).  I probably would have rated this a 5 at first, but it went down by the time I finished.  I DID have a lot to think about, and I can still remember it months later, so that's a truly positive thing!

Goodreads synopsis:  When a father goes missing, his family's desperate search leads them to question everything they know about him and one another--both a riveting page-turner and a deeply moving portrait of a family in crisis from the award-winning author of Miracle Creek.

"We didn't call the police right away." Those are the first words of this extraordinary novel about a biracial Korean-American family in Virginia whose lives are upended when their beloved father and husband goes missing.

Mia, the irreverent, hyperanalytical twenty-year-old daughter, has an explanation for everything--which is why she isn't initially concerned when her father and younger brother Eugene don't return from a walk in a nearby park. They must have lost their phone. Or stopped for an errand somewhere. But by the time Mia's brother runs through the front door bloody and alone, it becomes clear that the father in this tight-knit family is missing and the only witness is Eugene, who has the rare genetic condition Angelman syndrome and cannot speak.

What follows is both a ticking-clock investigation into the whereabouts of a father and an emotionally rich portrait of a family whose most personal secrets just may be at the heart of his disappearance. Full of shocking twists and fascinating questions of love, language, race, and human connection, Happiness Falls is a mystery, a family drama, and a novel of profound philosophical inquiry. With all the powerful storytelling she brought to her award-winning debut Miracle Creek, Angie Kim turns the missing person story into something wholly original, creating an indelible tale of a family who must go to remarkable lengths to truly understand one another.

88. What to Say Next by Julie Buxbaum

Listened to audio on Chirp
narrated by Abigail Revasch and Kirby Heyborne
Unabridged audio (9:04)
2017 Delacourte Press
292 pgs.
YA RF
Finished 6/1/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.07 - 14,465 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: contemporary Mapleview, America

First line/s: "An unprecedented event: Kit Lowell just sat down next to me in the cafeteria.  I always sit alone, and when I say always I don't mean that in the exaggerated vernacular vernacular favored by my classmates."

My comments: This wasn't the lighthearted book that the cover suggests.  It was pretty heavy, actually.  It was the clear, honest voices of the two main characters that grabbed me and pulled at my heart strings.  I could visualize the story unfolding, and felt empathetic and super pissed at the bullying and injustices that David hads endured throughout his life, and the heartbreak that Kit will have to carry with her forever.  I wish I really, truly believed in Karma, because I eally want all the boys depicted in this story to get their due!

Goodreads synopsis:  Two struggling teenagers find an unexpected connection just when they need it most.
          Sometimes a new perspective is all that is needed to make sense of the world.
          KIT: I don’t know why I decide not to sit with Annie and Violet at lunch. It feels like no one here gets what I’m going through. How could they? I don’t even understand.
          DAVID: In the 622 days I’ve attended Mapleview High, Kit Lowell is the first person to sit at my lunch table. I mean, I’ve never once sat with someone until now. “So your dad is dead,” I say to Kit, because this is a fact I’ve recently learned about her.
          When an unlikely friendship is sparked between relatively popular Kit Lowell and socially isolated David Drucker, everyone is surprised, most of all Kit and David. Kit appreciates David’s blunt honesty—in fact, she finds it bizarrely refreshing. David welcomes Kit’s attention and her inquisitive nature. When she asks for his help figuring out the how and why of her dad’s tragic car accident, David is all in. But neither of them can predict what they’ll find. Can their friendship survive the truth?

TV Show: Atypical

Just finished watching Season 3
Season 4 coming in 2021
Premiered: August 11, 2017
Number of Episodes: 38
Length of Episode: 30 minutes
IMBd:  8.3
RT Critic's Consensus:  Great performances and a likable, realistic family dealing with autism lift Atypical above its alarming tonal shifts and predictability.
RT Audience Score:  73/96
cag: Loved it a lot

Characters:
Sam Gardner- Keir Gilchrist
Casey Gardner- Brigette Lundy-Paine
Mom/Elsa Gardner- Jennifer Jason Leigh
Dad/Doug Gardner (an EMT) - Michael Rapaport
Zahid, Sam's best friend
Evan, Casey's boyfriend
Izzey, Casey's girlfriend
Paige, Sam's girlfriend

My comments:  This great ensemble cast follows the lives of two sibling, the older brother Sam, who is autistic, and the just-younger sister, Casey, who is smart and sassy.  The first season follows Sam through his senior year in hight school and then progresses to college, as we also watch Casey's love live and friendships become huge questions for her.  At the same time, the parent are reeling from an infidelity that may break them up.  I love Sam's obsession with penguins and his artistic ability, his over-the-top quirky girlfriend, and Sam's best friend Zahid.  I really feel for Evan, and have enjoyed this actor's performance a lot.

Storyline from Rotten Tomatoes:  Atypical is a coming of age story that follows Sam (played by Keir Gilchrist), a 19-year-old on the autism spectrum as he searches for love and independence. While Sam is on his funny and emotional journey of self-discovery, the rest of his family must grapple with change in their own lives as they all struggle with the ongoing central theme of the series: what does it really mean to be normal?

Season 1:  Sam Gardner (Keir Gilchrist), an 18-year-old on the autism spectrum, tells his overprotective family that he wants to start dating. His father Doug (Michael Rapaport) is at first enthusiastic and encouraging until he discovers that the girl Sam wanted to date is his much-older therapist Julia Sasaki (Amy Okuda). Realizing that her boy is finally growing up, Sam's mother Elsa (Jennifer Jason Leigh) finds herself at loss with what to do and tumbles into an affair with a bartender, Nick (Raul Castillo). Sam's younger sister Casey (Brigette Lundy-Paine) lands an athletic scholarship at a prestigious but faraway high school. However, she hesitates to take the scholarship, believing that her leaving will negatively affect Sam. The first season of "Atypical" also stars Nik Dodani as Sam's best friend Zahid, Jenna Boyd as Sam's pretend girlfriend Paige, Graham Rogers as Casey's boyfriend Evan, and Rachel Redleaf as Evan's sister Beth.

Season 2:  Casey Casey (Brigette Lundy-Paine) leaves for her new high school and befriends Izzie (Fivel Stewart), the track team captain. However, this newfound friendship threatens Casey's relationship with Evan (Graham Rogers). Sam (Keir Gilchrist) copes with Casey's leaving through drawing; he is also unable to find a new therapist he could be comfortable with the way he was with Julia (Amy Okuda). Sam's guidance counselor, Ms. Whitaker (Casey Wilson), discovers Sam's drawings and encourages him to apply to university. Doug (Michael Rapaport) learns about Elsa's (Jennifer Jason Leigh) affair and makes her leave the house. However, the stress of housework makes Doug relent and allow Elsa to come back home, though he keeps his distance out of resentment. The second season of "Atypical" also stars Nik Dodani as Sam's best friend Zahid and Jenna Boyd as Sam's pretend girlfriend Paige.

Season 3:  In season three, Sam starts his first year of college and is faced with the challenge of figuring out what success means for him, while adjusting to the changes that come with growing up. Jennifer Jason Leigh stars as his mother, Elsa, who continues her own journey of self-discovery as her children grow older and more independent, Michael Rapaport plays his father, Doug, and Brigette Lundy-Paine plays Sam's sister, Casey. Recurring this season are Sara Gilbert as Sam's new Ethics professor, and Eric McCormack as his art professor.

19. Dark Pattern by Andrew Mayne

#4 Dr. Theo Cray/The Naturalist
listened to Audible
narrated by Will Damron
2019 Thomas & Mercer
316 pgs.
Adult Mystery/Serial Killer
Finished 1/27/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.21 - 2317 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporay Texas, St. Lucia, and other points on the map....

First line/s: "Nora watched the doorway.  This was when the Night Lady usually stopped at her room and stared inside."

My comments:  Serial killer hunter extraordinaire!  Whenever I go into one of the Theo Cray books now, I know I have to suspend reality checks.  I'm sure most of - or at least many -  of Cray's technological "inventions" are still science-fiction, but they are what makes these mysteries so different.  You know that he's going to get himself into some stupid cray situations and you roll your eyes at most of his antics, but that's also what makes these books so much fun, as well as his definite Asperger's/Autistic tendencies and his cognition of them.  It also cracks me up how much he irritates people.  A huge part of the plot comes off as comic relief for me, I wonder if it affects others in the same way?  To write this combination of grizzly deaths and this extraordinary character is quite genius.  A real breakdown should be coming for this man!  Or has he had it?  ti's hard to tell from the ending of this book, which did seem a little rushed compared to the rest of it.

Goodreads synopsis:  Dr. Theo Cray is on the hunt for a killer nurse, and redemption, in a mind-bending psychological thriller by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Naturalist.
          Dr. Theo Cray has a legendary mathematical knack for catching serial killers. Until his exposure to a mind-altering pathogen knocks him off his game. It has upended an investigation, destroyed his reputation, and left him to question his own sanity. One person still trusts him to finish the job. His former professor Amanda Paulson is helping point Cray down a logical path to his prey: a nomadic health-care worker whose murder spree stretches back decades and whose victims number in the hundreds.
          Never more desperate to save innocent lives, and to save himself, Cray follows each new lead around the world. But with his own grip on reality slipping away, Cray knows that to follow the pattern of an elusive killer, he must also confront his own dark side. In those dangerous shadows, he can find what he’s hunting. For Cray, venturing into a world without reason is going to be the most frightening journey of his life.

83. The Bride Test by Helen Hoang

listened to audio - borrowed from library
read by Emily Woo Zeller
Unabridged audio (10 hrs.)
2019 Berkley
296 pgs.
Adult Romance
Finished  9/1/2019
Goodreads rating: 3.98 - 27,773 ratings
My rating:  5
Setting: contemporary Vietnam, then San Jose/Palo Alto area of California

First line/s:  "Khai was supposed to be crying.  He knew he was supposed to be crying.  Everyone else was."

My comments:  This one kept me giggling and rolling my eyes.  It was ultra cute and sweet and the perfect thing to read on a long, lazy, overcast three-day-weekend Sunday.  I've got to rate it a five just for being a delightful read.  Nothing ethereal or deep, just a little bit of innocesnce, adult autism, and a young adult from a different country and culture coming to the US and knowing very little about its culture other than what they've seen in a Disney movie or two.

Goodreads synopsis:  Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny, but not big, important emotions—like grief. And love. He thinks he’s defective. His family knows better—that his autism means he just processes emotions differently. When he steadfastly avoids relationships, his mother takes matters into her own hands and returns to Vietnam to find him the perfect bride.
          As a mixed-race girl living in the slums of Ho Chi Minh City, Esme Tran has always felt out of place. When the opportunity arises to come to America and meet a potential husband, she can’t turn it down, thinking this could be the break her family needs. Seducing Khai, however, doesn’t go as planned. Esme’s lessons in love seem to be working…but only on herself. She’s hopelessly smitten with a man who’s convinced he can never return her affection.
          With Esme’s time in the United States dwindling, Khai is forced to understand he’s been wrong all along. And there’s more than one way to love.

79. Ellie and the Harpmaker by Hazel Prior

read on my iPhone
2019 Bantam Press
288 pgs.
Adult CRF
Finished 8/17/2019
Goodreads rating: 3.93 - 813 ratings
My rating:  4.5
Setting:  Exmoor, England

First line/s:  "A woman came to the barn today.  Her hair was the color of walnut wood.  Her eyes were the color of bracken in October.  Her socks were the color of cherries, which was noticeable because all the rest of her clothes were sad colors.  She carried an enormous shoulder bag, canvas.  It had a big buckle (square), but it was hanging open.  The woman's mouth was open too.
She was shifting from one foot to the other by the door so I told her to come in.  The words came out a little bit mangled due to the fact that I was wearing my mask.  She asked what I'd said, so I took it off and also took off my earmuffs and I said it again.  She came in.  Her socks were very red indeed.  So was her face."  (What a great way to understand Dan's thinking process!)

My comments:  Ellie and the Harpmaker was not at all what I expected.  Written in two voices, Dan's and Ellie's, it's the perfect way to get into Dan's head. He was the harpmaker.  He lies somewhere on the autism spectrum, I'm guessing he has Aspergers.  And he is delightful.  Exmoor and harps and a pheasant pet; nature and counting anything and everything; crustless geometrically shaped sandwiches; innocence and vulnerability and gullibility; relationships between spouses, siblings, parents, friends, and children ---- these things and so many more shape the body of this story.  (It was much heavier than expected, too.) Excellent.

Goodreads synopsis:  In the rolling hills of beautiful Exmoor, there’s a barn. And in that barn, you’ll find Dan. He’s a maker of exquisite harps - but not a great maker of conversation. He’s content in his own company, quietly working and away from social situations that he doesn’t always get right.
          But one day, a cherry-socked woman stumbles across his barn and the conversation flows a little more easily than usual. She says her name’s Ellie, a housewife, alone, out on her daily walk and, though she doesn’t say this, she looks sad. He wants to make her feel better, so he gives her one of his harps, made of cherry wood.
          And before they know it, this simple act of kindness puts them on the path to friendship, big secrets, pet pheasants and, most importantly, true love

60. The Seven Rules of Elvira Carr by Frances Maynard

read on my iPhone
2017, Mantle
393 pgs.
Adult CRF
Finished 9/30/17
Goodreads rating:  4.02 - 477 ratings
My rating:  5, I think
Setting: Contemporary England

First line/s:  "I was scrubbing potatoes when it happened."

My comments:  This was a charming, multi-layered story, told in the first person by Elvira herself.  Elvira has autism/Aspergers, and has been ruled -- and bullied -- by her overbearing mother for her entire 25 - or - so years.  That changes, however, when her mother has a serious stroke at the very beginning of the story.  Elvira learns to cope and appear more "normal" with the help of many caring individuals.  I love this book.  It takes you into the head and heart of a gril with a condition that is incredibly difficult to understand.

Goodreads synopsis: A socially challenged young woman is finally forced to find her place in the world in this breathtaking and moving debut 
     Elvira Carr believes in crisp schedules, clear guidelines, and taking people at face value. She lives at home with her overbearing mother, who has deemed her unfit to interact with the rest of society.
     But when her mother has a stroke, Ellie is suddenly forced to look after herself. She quickly comes up with an ingenious way of coping with the world: the seven social rules spreadsheet.
     Unfortunately, Ellie soon discovers that most people don't live their lives within a set of rules. As she experiences social missteps and awkward encounters, Ellie continues to learn – about herself, and the people around her. And she'll need this new knowledge if she hopes to pave the way to living life on her own terms.

MOVIE - The Accountant

R (2:08)

Wide 10.8.16

Viewed 10.17.16 at Park Place

RT Critic:  49  Audience:  87
Critic's Consensus:  The Accountant writes off a committed performance from Ben Affleck, leaving viewers with a scattershot action thriller beset by an array of ill-advised deductions.

Cag:  5/Loved it

Directed by Gavin O'Connor

Warner Brothers Pictures

Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J. T. Simmons, John Lithgow, Jeffrey Tambor

My comments:  I loved this movie.  Some of the critics didn't...probably because it was all wrapped up in a neat little bow, which is what I really loved about it.  Bill Dubuque, who wrote the screenplay, was brilliant.  He took a number of seemingly different vignettes and wove them together to make one story.  He must have needed a wall to map it out!  Spectacular storytelling!   Yup, violence, and killing...but sweetness and humor and a grand mystery as well. And Asberger's.  And love, although it definitely wasn't a love story per se.  Top it off with small roles for both John Lithgow and Jeffrey Tambor (and fantastic parts for Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, and J. T. Simmons) and this became a real winner for me...one of my favorites so far this year!

RT/ IMDb Summary:  Christian Wolff is a math savant with more affinity for numbers than people. Behind the cover of a small-town CPA office, he works as a freelance accountant for some of the world's most dangerous criminal organizations. With the Treasury Department's Crime Enforcement Division, run by Ray King, starting to close in, Christian takes on a legitimate client: a state-of-the-art robotics company where an accounting clerk has discovered a discrepancy involving millions of dollars. But as Christian uncooks the books and gets closer to the truth, it is the body count that starts to rise.

17. Shine Shine Shine - Lydia Netzer

Audio read by Joshilyn Jackson - beautifully!

9 unabridged discs

2012 St. Martin's Press

309 pgs.

Adult CRF

Finished 11-24-2015

Goodreads rating:  3.48

My rating:  4 Liked it a whole lot

TPPL

Setting: Contemporary Virginia (but many flashbacks to Burma and rural Pennsylvania)

My comments:  This is a really difficult book to rate.  It was read beautifully by Joshilyn Jackson, one of the wonderful things about the book.  The characters were over-the-top quirky - I love quirky but are these characters just a little too-too far....every single one of them? Maxon, the husband, is awesome and believable; utterly and wonderfully autistic, I wanted more of him. Emma, the mother, sickening so quickly and refusing to die, having played such a huge part in teaching Maxon how to fit into a world that was different - and not so understanding of - a person like him.   But this is Sunny's story, and Sunny is the one I had the most difficulty with. One minute I though I had her pegged, but the next...?  The story is pretty cool - fanciful and unbelievable (as well as believable) and exotic and different and funny, too. Whew!  I guess I really liked almost all of it.  

Goodreads book summary:  A debut unlike any other, Shine, Shine, Shine is a shocking, searing, breathless love story, a gripping portrait of modern family, and a stunning exploration of love, death and what it means to be human.
          Sunny Mann has masterminded a life for herself and her family in a quiet Virginia town. Her house and her friends are picture-perfect. Even her genius husband, Maxon, has been trained to pass for normal. But when a fender bender on an average day sends her coiffed blonde wig sailing out the window, her secret is exposed. Not only is she bald, Sunny is nothing like the Stepford wife she’s trying to be. As her facade begins to unravel, we discover the singular world of Sunny, an everywoman searching for the perfect life, and Maxon, an astronaut on his way to colonize the moon.                   Theirs is a wondrous, strange relationship formed of dark secrets, decades-old murders and the urgent desire for connection. As children, the bald, temperamental Sunny and the neglected savant Maxon found an unlikely friendship no one else could understand. She taught him to feel -- helped him translate his intelligence for numbers into a language of emotion. He saw her spirit where others saw only a freak. As they grew into adults, their profound understanding blossomed into love and marriage.     

           But with motherhood comes a craving for normalcy that begins to strangle Sunny’s marriage and family. As Sunny and Maxon are on the brink of destruction, at each other’s throats with blame and fear of how they’ve lost their way, Maxon departs for the moon, where he’s charged with programming the robots that will build the fledgling colony. Just as the car accident jars Sunny out of her wig and into an awareness of what she really needs, an accident involving Maxon’s rocket threatens everything they’ve built, revealing the things they’ve kept hidden. And nothing will ever be the same.

65. The Good Luck of Right Now - Matthew Quick

2014 Harper Collins

285 pgs.

Adult Contemporary Realistic Fiction

Finished 10/17/14

Goodreads rating: 3.60

My rating:   3.5 Liked it a lot, with one reservation

TPPL

Setting: Contemporary Philadelphia with a foray to Montreal and Ottawa

1st sentence/s: "Dear Mr. Richard Gere,  In Mom's underwear drawer -- as I was separating her "personal" clothes from the "lightly used" articles I could donate to the local thrift shop -- I found a letter you wrote."

My comments: This book was certainly quirky and fun. And funny.  The protagonist, Bartholemew (love that name!) Neil reminded me a bit of The Rosie Project's Don Tillman. But somehow it's impossible to totally picture a grown man of 38 never having a job, a friend other than the local priest and his mom, a vocation, a hobby, an interest... I tried and tried to conjure an image of this poor guy, but to no avail.  My imagination is usually pretty good, but to totally love a book I need to relate in some way and I couldn't. I wasn't IN this story, I was watching from afar, if that makes any sense.... But I still liked it very, very much.
      Here's a quote that resonated: "Back before she got sick, mom always used to say, "for every bad thing that happens, a good thing happens, too - and this is how the world stays in harmony." Whenever too many good things happened to us, mom would say, "I feel sorry for whoever is getting screwed to balance all of this out,": because she believed that our good meant that someone else somewhere in the world was experiencing bad.  It actually depressed her when our luck was very good.  Mom hated to think about others suffering so that we might enjoy our life."

Goodreads book summary: For thirty-eight years, Bartholomew Neil has lived with his mother. When she gets sick and dies, he has no idea how to be on his own. His redheaded grief counselor, Wendy, says he needs to find his flock and leave the nest. But how does a man whose whole life has been grounded in his mom, Saturday mass, and the library learn how to fly?
          Bartholomew thinks he’s found a clue when he discovers a “Free Tibet” letter from Richard Gere hidden in his mother’s underwear drawer. In her final days, mom called him Richard—there must be a cosmic connection. Believing that the actor is meant to help him, Bartholomew awkwardly starts his new life, writing Richard Gere a series of highly intimate letters. Jung and the Dalai Lama, philosophy and faith, alien abduction and cat telepathy, the Catholic Church and the mystery of women are all explored in his soul-baring epistles. But mostly the letters reveal one man’s heartbreakingly earnest attempt to assemble a family of his own.
          A struggling priest, a “Girlbrarian,” her feline-loving, foul-mouthed brother, and the spirit of Richard Gere join the quest to help Bartholomew. In a rented Ford Focus, they travel to Canada to see the cat Parliament and find his biological father . . . and discover so much more.

69. Anything but Typical - Nora Raleigh Baskin

Audio Read by Tom Parks - beautifully
Brilliance Audio, 2009
3 unabridged cds
4 hours
208 pages
Many places I've visited say "YA". I go with the ages 9-12, grades 4+
Rating: 5

I started reading this last year, but I couldn't renew it because there were other holds on it, so I didn't get very far. When I ran across this audio form I jumped at the chance to listen. Tom Parks gave the protagonist so much character - this was an excellent read/listen.

Jason Blake is autistic. He flaps, he can't look anyone in the eye, he feels safest looking down or standing toward a wall. He rarely speaks directly to someone other than repeating the last words they said. He has no friends - of course everyone thinks he's "weird." He tells his story in the first person, we get INSIDE HIS HEAD. Wow. Like Out of My Mind, every teacher in the world should read this book!

Jason is a writer, writing on the computer on a STORYBOARD site where others can read his stories and respond to them. He makes a friend in this way, but when he finds they will both be attending a storyboard convention in Dallas he tries to sabotage his attending, because he knows that once Rebecca sees him they'll not be friends anymore. Reality. A happy ending would be great, right? Reality......

I also really enjoyed the way that Baskin included Jason's parents in the story.....how Jason interacts with them, how he knows what they're feeling by the way they act and the looks on their faces, how he relates to each one of them individually. Outstanding on every level, with my parent hat on, with my teacher hat on, with my reader hat on.

I recommended this book to all my colleagues at Wednesday's staff meeting. To get inside Jason's head was magical to me. Everyone's brain works differently, and some work REALLY differently. We all need to not only remember that, but see it and feel it and live it through the pages of an exceptional book like this.

My Brother Charlie - Holly Robinson Peete & Ryan Elizabeth Peete

Illustrated by Jane W. Evans
Scholastic, 2010
$16.99
32 pgs.
Endpapers: Blue sky with puffy clouds, the corner has the head of the family dog with a robin sitting on his nose.

Based on the true story of twins Ryan and RJ Peete, Callie tells the story of her twin brother Charlie. Charlie has autism. She tells the differences between them, how they felt when the doctors told them he had this neurological mis-wiring, what she does to understand his quietness and differences, and how he relates to people. The story is heartfelt and brave, and the illustrations are perfect. No white, yellow background instead. Big bold characters. You can faintly see brush strokes on canvas. Eyes that show such expression!

This book discusses how to try to understand kids that are different. It tells a bit about autism, that so many of us know so little about, but which we are hearing about more and more. But it's a great book to share to begin a discussion about treating ALL kids with respect, looking for the attributes they have deep inside, not just the differences we see outwardly.

Barnes and Noble has a three-minute interview with the authors that's informative and interesting (it's always nice to peek at an author, and this is with both the authors).

I hope this book gets read by as many people as possible.

MOVIE - Adam

Wonderful acting, moving story
Released July 29, 2009
PG-13 (1:37)
9/1 at El Con with Ronnie
RT: 64% cag: 90%
Director: Max Mayer


Hugh Dancy (of Jane Austen Book Club and Ella Enchanted), Rose Byrne


Adam is a 29 year old electrical engineer with Asperger Syndrome, a form of autism. His father has died and left Adam alone - for the first time in his life. He lives in a New York City apartment and meets his new upstairs neighbor, Beth. A primary school teacher, she is sensitive and inquisitive, studies up on Aspergers, and befriends Adam. It runs from a friendship to more. But it's a difficult road...and an interesting one. Amy Irving and Peter Gallagher play Beth's parents, a subplot that impacts the story.


I think that Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne, as the leads, do terrific acting jobs. Hugh Dancy is adorable. And he's convincing. He's British and seems to have the American accent down pat. I really enjoyed this film.

47. Marcelo in the Real World - Francisco X. Stork

Published March, 2009
Arthur A. Levine/Scholasticf
$17.99
316 pgs.
for: Young Adults 14 and up
Rating: A total 5 *****
(Also rated PG-13)

It is the summer before Marcelo's senior year, and his father is insisting that instead of working at the stables at his private school for the summer, he must come to work in the mail room of his law firm in Boston, to get a taste of the "real world."

Marcelo has a form of autism/Asperger's Syndrome, and is an amazing young man. We get inside his head. And he is fascinating. Extraordinary. Honest. He thinks - and speaks- of himself in the third person He takes an extra long time sorting through information, so he pauses for long periods before speaking. He's always been very quiet, he ponders questions inside and out before he speaks. He has incredible meta-cognition, is obsessed with the theories behind religion of any kind, hears his own music in his head AND on cd (he has a huge classical collection), and in good weather lives in a treehouse in his yard so that he can be alone. He likes organization, likes to be prepared for what's going to happen when, and in this summer, at his father's law firm, embarks upon a journey of growth and change and insight that is truly marvelous in its own way. I love hearing his entire thought processes when it comes to witnessing...and taking part in....the world. Truly fascinating.

I thought the beginning was just a little slow. But don't stop reading, it gets better and better an even better. Then midway through the story he finds a discarded photograph of a beautiful young girl who is missing half her face....which takes him on a journey that includes discovery about this girl and great insights about himself and the world.

There are many well-created personalities in this book: Jasmine, his young boss, just a little older than the 17-year old Marcelo; Aurora, his mom, his number one fan and role model; Arturo, his dad, a powerful lawyer trying, in his own way, to understand his son; and Jerry Garcia, the lawyer, who become a pivotal part of the story.

My favorite section of the book is when Marcelo accompanies Jasmine to her family home in Vermont.

Satisfying and illuminating.