Loading…
The Cupertino Library will be closed Monday, October 25 & Tuesday, October 26 for RFID equipment installation.Invisible
Add a Comment
Add Tags
Add More
Add to my Collection
Mark for Later
Save to a List
PrintDetails
Doug and Andy are unlikely best friends--one a loner obsessed by his model trains, the other a popular student involved in football and theater--who grew up together and share a bond that nothing can sever.
Hanson,Doug - (Student - Male) Takes everything literally; descends further into isolation and obsession; works on a model railroad; refuses to get medical help
Morrow, Andy - (Student - Male) Dougie's best friend; athletic; popular
The Horn Book
(Middle School, High School) Gifted in math, and recognizably clever when constructing architectural models (he's building an elaborate railroad system in his basement), Doug reveals that it's human interaction he can't figure out. ""I'm a quiet kid, pretty much invisible,"" he says in a precise, unemotional voice, as this unreliable narrator begins his story. Invisibility is Doug's rationale for explaining a range of rejection, from teacher irritation to peer scorn, particularly from pretty and popular Melissa Haverman, who is disgusted by what readers will recognize as Doug's stalker behavior. But Doug reports one near-perfect relationship, the one he has with his best friend, Andy. Gradually, however, that friendship is revealed to be not what it seems. There are secrets from their past that Doug won't discuss, and hints from their present life that skew his tale. Why is there a strange man in Andy's house? What fuels Doug's increasingly complex rendering of their intertwined initials? What medication is Doug refusing to take? Reading this psychological thriller is much like putting together one of Doug's railroad bridges: connections are being made, but the realities being built may be imitations of life rather than the real thing. The tension comes from entering Doug's private hell and learning what put him there. Copyright 2005 of The Horn Book, Inc. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Reviews
Dougie Hanson is invisible to nearly everyone in this haunting, lonely tale. He's extremely close to his best friend, Andy, even though Andy's a popular athlete. When they aren't together, Dougie works on the elaborate model train he's been building for nearly three years; the 11-foot-long suspension bridge built of matchsticks is nearly done. The bridge contains 22,400 matches in all (Dougie likes both numbers and matches). As the bridge approaches completion, glimpses from Doug's eyes reveal a life more troubled than he admits. His parents worry, his therapist asks if he's taking his meds and a female schoolmate accuses him of stalking. The mentally ill Dougie, who evokes echoes of Faulkner with his unreliable narration, is confronted with truths he can't bear. The deceptively simple prose doesn't keep secrets from its readers, but Dougie's harrowing mysteries are no less tragic for their visibility. (Fiction. 12-16) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Find it at SCCL
Connect With Others
Other users with this title in their collections
Comments
There are no comments for this title.