Here's a decade-old book that always seemed to pop into my periphery every few years. Out of nowhere, I'd see a grandparent reading it, or hear a coworker recommending it, or read something somewhere on the Internet referencing it. Apparently, my wife has owned this one for a long time, and it's been sitting right there on our bookshelf. So when I saw it the other day I thought, hey, why not? And I dove right in.
The book made for a quick but engrossing read. Presenting itself as a murder mystery, its real merit is as a point-of-view narrative from the perspective of a teenage boy with some form of autism. Although he's a fictional character, it's so easy to understand and appreciate his worldview, and by extension, to gain a better appreciation for how high-functioning autists deal with stress, strife, and daily routine.
To share much more about this book - which, again, is a quick little mystery novel as far as you should initially be concerned - would be to risk spoiling or ruining the experience in some way. And among all the books I've read over the years and discussed on this blog, this is one I really would strongly recommend to anyone. It's got simple mass appeal and it's just over 200 pages long. There are even lots of pictures.
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