After reading a number of strong reviews for Marcelo in the Real World (and after resisting for a while because it didn’t sound like my kind of book), I finally picked up this young adult novel to add to my classroom library.
Marcelo Sandoval is a 17-year-old with a condition similar to Asperger’s syndrome. (One of the things that I really like about the book is the way that it allows the reader to experience the way that Marcelo’s brain works—the way that he thinks very literally, the way that he has difficulty with idiom, the way that the everyday buzz of life can overwhelm his senses, the way that he experiences feelings as a sort of internal music.) When Marcelo finishes his junior year, his father (Arturo) tell him that—instead of working for the summer in the stable of the special school that he attends—Marcelo will work in the mail room of Arturo’s high-powered Boston law office. It is time, Arturo has decided, for Marcelo to experience the real world.
At the law office, Marcelo meets those who befriend him (like Jasmine, his supervisor in the mail room) and those who take advantage of him (like Wendell, the arrogant son of his father’s law partner). And he unwittingly becomes involved in a major case that stirs feelings he has never experienced before.
Part coming-of-age story, part legal drama, part spiritual exploration, Marcelo in the Real World is a moving piece about a memorable young man.
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