Excellent novel from the point of view of an autistic individual as he struggles to understand the world around him. Great balance of internal reflection and action that engages the reader. The author truly pulls you into Marcelo's world in a unique and powerful way. ( )

This book was very sweet, written in a style closer to classic children's literature than YA. I don't mean that it's more appropriate for a middle-grade audience, but that larger than life characters and the sense of an authorial voice behind Marcelo's remind me more of, say, Louis Sachar than John Green.

Marcelo's voice is very likable and engaging, and his journey into the world of corporate law makes for a story with more genuine moral ambiguity than a lot of young adult literature. Most of the other characters are not as complex and their dialogue is frankly unbelievable, but Stork is so masterful a writer that I was able to read past the lack of realism (which is rare for me!)

As for depicting a person on the autism spectrum, I thought Stork did a good job making Marcelo identifiable as a person with Asperger's but more than the sum of his symptoms. He does sort of fit into the "morally outstanding person with a disability" cliche, but I think Stork did a good job showing that this is just Marcelo's personality and not an inevitable result of his disability. However, I'll leave it to other readers to decide if this book had issues that I'm overlooking. ( )

I really liked this story. A liked it a great deal. The characters were interesting and inspirational. Excellent ending as well. Bravo! Marcelo! ( )

Incredibly brisk read, and it was quite enjoyable.
I think I have a thing for characters with Asperger's. (I liked The Curious Incident of The Dog, and the film: Adam). After knowing that much about them, maybe my rating isn't fair. Maybe it deserves more, who knows? It was a fluff read, nonetheless. Nothing serious, which was exactly what I needed. I believe it is an EXCELLENT book for young adults, and they all should read it. There are lessons there.
I didn't like the excessive referencing from holy books though. Okay, it is not excessive. But I wished that the part was omitted. Just to make it more universal.
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Reread this book and loved it as much the second time through. ( )

The term "cognitive disorder" implies there is something wrong with the way I think or the way I perceive reality. I perceive reality just fine. Sometimes I perceive more of reality than others. Marcelo Sandoval hears music that nobody else can hear - part of an autism-like condition that no doctor has been able to identify. But his father has never fully believed in the music or Marcelo's differences, and he challenges Marcelo to work in the mailroom of his law firm for the summer . . . to join "the real world. There Marcelo meets Jasmine, his beautiful and surprising coworker, and Wendell, the son of another partner in the firm. He learns about competition and jealousy, anger and desire. But it's a picture he finds in a file a picture of a girl with half a face that truly connects him with the real world: its suffering, its injustice, and what he can do to fight.

Marcelo Sandoval is a high-functioning, extremely self-aware teenager with Asperger's syndrome. He has an empathetic mother and a father, Arturo, who appears to be less empathetic as he pushes Marcelo to live in the "real world." The form the real world takes is a summer job in the mailroom at Arturo's law office. The teen is forced to think on his feet, multitask, and deal with duplicitous people who try to take advantage of him. Over the course of a summer, Marcelo learns that he can function in society; he is especially surprised to find that he can learn to read people's expressions, even to the point of knowing whom he can and cannot trust. Writing in a first-person narrative, Stork does an amazing job of entering Marcelo's consciousness and presenting him as a dynamic, sympathetic, and wholly believable character. ( )

Marcelo truly goes to the beat of his own drum: he hears music in his head. His father wants Marcelo to join “the real world” by working at his law firm for the summer. This is decidedly not what Marcelo had in mind for his last summer before senior year. He had planned work in the Patterson school stables where he'd be surrounded with people like him and animals whose main therapeutic purpose is to mirror emotions and help people socialize. While working in the mail room, Marcelo meets Jasmine and Wendell who impact his life in unforeseen ways. What follows is a journey of friendship, identity, risk-taking, and acceptance.

Disclaimer: Not a Juvenile book, much more a Young Adult book!

This is a wonderful story and insight into the world of a young man who has been classified on the spectrum with high functioning autism, or Aspberger's (spelling, sorry...). But it isn't a fully accurate diagnosis. Marcelo is fantastic and the author created a very believeable character. Marcelo knows what makes him happy and calm and even what he wants to do with his life until his father insists that Marcelo enters the "real world."

I have worked with many young people on the spectrum and their parents. I love them all dearly but almost all parents have had that thought of, "am I doing the right thing for my child? Should the focus of their education be more functional or more academic? Do they go somewhere where they can succeed at their level or do they go some where potentially frustrating because it is challenging on many different levels?" There is no easy answer for this, because there are benefits to both and yet it seems the decision has to be one or the other. Maybe this should change....

Anyway, the story is lovely. I was invested in Marcelo way before I started reading this because of my experiences with other friends. I was distraught for him at his father's suggestion and instantly wished the whole thing would fail. It did not. Marcelo grew and learned. He experienced so many things, good and ugly. He experienced life in all of its disappointments, frustrations and joys.
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Stork really captured aspects of Asperger's Syndrome in Marcelo. Character development was very strong. But does he and Jasmine get together for real? That was too ambiguous for me. ( )

Stunning, heartfelt characters, beautifully written, humorous. I love Marcelo and Jasmine! Between them, they have more wisdom and practicality than a lot of adults. I laughed aloud at the ribald conversation between Jasmine's father, Amos, and their close neighbors. ( )

What a charming book. I loved Marcelo and his unique view of the world. His coming of age story is so different from many, but also shows how universal growing pains can be. ( )

Marcelo has Asperger’s syndrome and has always attended a special school. What will happen when Marcelo’s father insists that he work in the mailroom at his law rm and go to a new high school in the fall?

3.5 stars
I'm not sure where to begin with this. On one hand, I loved this book. On the other hand, I do have a few major problems with it.

Firstly, the positives: Marcelo in the Real World features an autistic, Latino protagonist (super important representation!), Marcelo is not judged for his positive experience at a school for disabled children, complex themes such as religion, injustice and love are explored and the story gives an insight to the difficulties autistic people face when adjusting to the neurotypical world. On top of that, the book is easy to read and the writing is solid.

As for my complaints, I was quite disappointed in the usage of "functioning" labels. Myself and many others in the autistic community regard functioning labels as harmful, and Marcelo is consistently praised for his "extremely high-functioning" autism. As someone who would medically be considered "mildly autistic", it was difficult to read that praise, as it denies support and recognition of my issues. Besides, it also implies "low-functioning" autistics have less worth, which is an inhumane statement in itself.
Then, there was the focus on becoming a "regular" person. This was particularly emphasised at the end of the book: Marcelo managed to "fit in" by masking his autistic traits as much as he could and he's happy about it. That is not a message that should be spread, and this comes from someone who has mastered the skill of what we call masking in the autistic community. The solution is not to have autistic people hide parts of themselves, it is to give them space to be themselves.
I also didn't appreciate the inconsistent narrative. Marcelo switches from talking in first and third person regularly, even though it is implied in the beginning of the story that he only uses first person language when he consciously reminds himself of it. Some thing just didn't really add up.

Despite my complaints, I really enjoyed this Y/A novel. Being a seventeen-year-old is hard enough, let alone being thrown into a judgmental, confusing world which is completely out of your comfort zone. I think the autistic representation could've been better, but it's a start (besides, a neurotypical will never be able to portray us as well as we deserve, so let's give autistic authors a voice!).

Note: this book includes several ableist slurs, such as the r-word, m*ron and imb*cile. ( )

Done! Review to go up after book club! ( )

This is another one I perhaps should have read instead of listened to. I didn't like the reader's voice and wasn't always sure when Marcelo was thinking or talking. He read slowly, which made sense for the character, but I ended up turning on the 2x speed on my ipod at times. It's a coming-of-age story about a young man with high functioning autism whose father requires him to work in his law firm for the summer to gain more experience of the "real world". He works through issues that most teenagers do in his own way. There was a more religion in it than I expected. The messages were important, but somehow I was dissatisfied with the story. ( )

Seventeen-year-old Marcelo Sandoval is happy attending his special school, helping with the horses in the stable at the school and going home to his special tree house. But his father Arturo thinks he needs to become a part of the real world. So he tells Marcelo that he will have to work in Arturo’s law firm for the summer. If Marcelo is successful, he may attend his special school in the fall. If not, he must attend the local public school. Marcelo doesn’t want to leave his school where he is in his own comfort zone and where he likes the stable work. So he decides to do his best at the summer job in the law firm. He meets and friends Jasmine who is his mentor in the mailroom. She helps him to discover his place in the law firm and in the real world. Woven into the plot is an instance of how social injustice sometimes exists in our legal system. As the summer progresses, Marcelo uncovers just such a case that is being handled by the law firm and finds that he is faced with a very big and important decision that could change not only his life but also the lives of those who work in the law firm.

The book is about an innocent teenage boy who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome and who lives in his own little world of school, horses, religion and music. Through the events in the book, he begins to learn how to function in the real world. He finds out that he will have to deal with many different types of people including some who are not so honorable. Stork takes his character realistically through this transition although I know in real life that such a transition probably wouldn’t happen quite that quickly. I really liked that the author made me think like Marcelo as I read the book and in so doing I could empathize with him. It gave me some insight into how someone on the spectrum might think and react to the outside world. Reading this book would help the teenager better understand how someone with a disability might have difficulty functioning in the real world.
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RGG: Yes, a Latino version of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, including the mystery, but after a bit of a slow start, an engaging read. An unlikeable character's graphic sexism and implication of a violent sexual act make for a more YA read. Reading Interest: 14-YA.

RGG: Yes, a Latino version of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, including the mystery, but after a bit of a slow start, an engaging read. An unlikeable character's graphic sexism and implication of a violent sexual act make for a more YA read. Reading Interest: 14-YA.

I really liked the message and the thought provoking questions and discussions in this book. It had an interesting plot and humor and gentleness but that greatly clashed with the profanity and crude sexual references by many of the characters except for the main character. I get that it highlighted the purity and goodness of Marcelo, the mc, but I don't feel comfortable reading that kind of stuff so I had to skip over pages. I include that here in my review so that any other readers who don't like reading that kind of stuff are forewarned. At the same time though, the main message was how do we recognize right from wrong and how do we do what's right even when it seems it might hurt those we love- a great question- with a great answer: we look at the fruit and we listen to our hearts, and we try not to be distracted by all the little yearnings and urges we think are important but are really selfish or silly. (The author puts it much better than I can.) ( )

One of my favorite books because it let me get inside the head of an autistic teen and see what the world looks like from his perspective. ( )

4.5 stars.

Wow, I really really liked this book.

Marcelo is a mildly-autistic kid, who is forced by his lawyer-father to work during the summer in his law firm, in order to prove that he is normal and can function in the real world.

And he does, though perhaps not exactly in the way his father anticipated.

Marcelo is sweet and sensitive; I absolutely loved him. I loved how he dealt with things, how he saw the world in that slightly different way.

In short, I liked the story; I liked the characters; I liked the narration. The ending might have been a tad too perfect, but it was certainly a satisfying read that I would like to come back to. It left me feeling giddy with happiness.



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UPDATE 2/8/09

My initial impression still stands. Although I liked the way the author had the main character Marcelo speak, and how he added certain quirks that were realistic, Stork was unable to keep it consistent.. and some characteristics were not compatible w/someone w/Aspergers..such as speaking in literal terms only and then suddenly speaking/understanding metaphors, for example. The plot was sort of intriguing but I thought kind of trashy too.





Oh, I am not sure I like this book. A goodreads friend gave me a copy recently and while I do enjoy the interesting writing style (the author writes from the point of view of a 17 year old boy with Asperger's who refers to himself and his parents in the 3rd person- strange but interesting) I'm not sure I like the story line at all. It is a bit painful to read, how this boy is forced into working at his father's law firm for the summer, where he is vulnerable and subject to manipulation and exploitation. I've seen positive reviews of this book, with comparisons to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.. I liked that book- not sure of this one.. I'm on p 131 as of now, I will try to finish it and see if I feel the same way.
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Wow. A little bit like Born on a Blue Day or Flowers for Algernon - but it's not just getting to know the character that's exciting, it's also the mystery that he gets involved in. Excellent for lots of readers of diverse interests. Recommended for mature teens and adults, though, not innocent or early teens (lots of sexual references that might make a sheltered young person feel weird). ( )

A coworker suggested that I read this book. I am very glad I took the time to read it. The story was well plotted out and the characters were true-to-life. The cover of the book did not reflect the true story. If this author decided to continue this story, I would read it. For most areas of this story, I did not find my morals tested or the characters reacted the way I would have. I did not like the character, Wendell, he was rotten. I know Wendell played a big part in this story, I just wished he had not been so mean. ( )