My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Ted has Asperger's syndrome (though never directly identified as such in the text, it's fairly obvious) and like his counterpart from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, he puts his unique, high-functioning brain to work on solving a mystery - this one his cousin's frightening disappearance.
Ted usually has his eyes on the clouds: his syndrome keeps him from empathizing with the people around him, though it doesn't keep him from making keen observations about the way things work. There is a certain tone of detachment that is almost unavoidable with autistic narrators, and it can undercut the emotional weight of a story like this. His connection to his sister Kat didn't quite work for me, and the rest of the adult characters spend large chunks of time ignoring him or telling him to be quiet.
Still, it's a well-constructed mystery with all the clues laid out for the reader to see along with Kat and Ted. It's The Curious Incident for younger readers, though it is not always successful in its depiction of Ted's unusual ways of thinking and feeling.
Ted usually has his eyes on the clouds: his syndrome keeps him from empathizing with the people around him, though it doesn't keep him from making keen observations about the way things work. There is a certain tone of detachment that is almost unavoidable with autistic narrators, and it can undercut the emotional weight of a story like this. His connection to his sister Kat didn't quite work for me, and the rest of the adult characters spend large chunks of time ignoring him or telling him to be quiet.
Still, it's a well-constructed mystery with all the clues laid out for the reader to see along with Kat and Ted. It's The Curious Incident for younger readers, though it is not always successful in its depiction of Ted's unusual ways of thinking and feeling.
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