Book review: Colin Fischer

Colin Fischer is just starting high school and his parents are very worried. He has Aspergers, can't stand to be touched or the colour blue and he needs index cards to regocnize people's face expressions. Sherlock Holmes is a big inspiration to him and he probably sees himself as a younger and more modern version of him. One day at school a gun goes off in the school cafeteria. Unlike the rest of the students Colin doesn't flee the scene but stays to investigate, because investigating is what he loves to do. The school soon finds a suspect but Colin knows they're wrong. The book is written by Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz (screenwriters of X-Men: First Class and Thor).

I had a hard time getting into this book for some reason. Though I think the story could have been a bit more fast-paced I blame some of it on my reading mood or the lack of reading mood lately. I guess my blogging mood hasn't been the best either because it's taken me this long to post this review.

The plot in this book is not particularly original or very exciting but this story is about something more than a crime being investigated and solved. Fortunately because the mystery in the book is not executed in a way I find very satisfying. In the end we don't get all the answers we should have and it feels a bit to easy. We get to know who brought the gun to school but not really why. So as I implied this book does not have it's strenght as a mystery but more in being about a boy who's different. Colin is a very likable character and although I have little knowledge of Asperger syndrome I think it gave me a little insight. The writing is fun, easy and we get to know more about Colin through his notebook which is a nice and successful touch I think. He writes about things he notices and wants to investigate further and he writes about facts and experiments that fascinates him. We also get to follow his way of thinking through the footnotes that explains words or incidents in the story with facts.

So all in all a good experience as an entertaining and sometimes touching contemporary novel about a young boy being different, but as a mystery not so much. The mystery not being solved properly is not a big problem though because the interesting part of the book is exploring Colin's mind and the world around him through his eyes.

My rating:



Source:
Gift from the publisher Puffin Books