Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4315 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780545054744
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Artfully crafted characters form the heart of Stork's (The Way of the Jaguar) judicious novel. Marcelo Sandoval, a 17-year-old with an Asperger's-like condition, has arranged a job caring for ponies at his special school's therapeutic-riding stables. But he is forced to exit his comfort zone when his high-powered father steers Marcelo to work in his law firm's mailroom (in return, Marcelo can decide whether to stay in special ed, as he prefers, or be mainstreamed for his senior year). Narrating with characteristically flat inflections and frequently forgetting to use the first person, Marcelo manifests his anomalies: he harbors an obsession with religion (he regularly meets with a plainspoken female rabbi, though he's not Jewish); hears internal music; and sleeps in a tree house. Readers enter his private world as he navigates the unfamiliar realm of menial tasks and office politics with the ingenuity of a child, his voice never straying from authenticity even as the summer strips away some of his differences. Stork introduces ethical dilemmas, the possibility of love, and other real world conflicts, all the while preserving the integrity of his characterizations and intensifying the novel's psychological and emotional stakes. Not to be missed. Ages 14–up. (Mar.)
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From School Library Journal
Starred Review. Grade 8 Up—Like Christopher Boone, the protagonist in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Doubleday, 2003), 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. At a little over 300 pages, the story drags at some points, bogging down in the middle. However, the dilemmas that Marcelo faces are told in a compelling fashion, which helps to keep readers engaged.—Wendy Smith-D'Arezzo, Loyola College, Baltimore, MD
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Seventeen-year-old Marcelo is on the very high-functioning end of the autism spectrum. He prefers an ordered existence, which includes taking care of the ponies at Paterson, his special school; reading religious books; and listening to the music in his head. Then his father, a high-powered attorney, insists that Marcelo spend the summer working in his law firm. If he does his best, Marcelo will be given the choice of returning to Paterson or being mainstreamed. After finding a photo of a disfigured girl injured by the negligence of his father’s biggest client, Marcelo must decide whether to follow his conscience and try to right the wrong, even as he realizes that decision will bring irrevocable changes to his life and to his relationship with his father. That story alone would be thought-provoking, but Stork offers much, much more. Readers are invited inside Marcelo’s head, where thoughts are so differently processed, one can almost feel them stretch and twist as the summer progresses and Marcelo changes. Much of the impetus for change comes from his relationship with his mailroom boss, Jasmine. In a chapter near the end, Jasmine takes Marcelo to the family farm in Vermont, where he meets her raunchy father. It’s a scene many writers wouldn’t have bothered with, but the layers it adds mark Stork as a true storyteller. Shot with spirtualism, laced with love, and fraught with conundrums, this book, like Marcelo himself, surprises. Grades 9-12. --Ilene Cooper

Customer Reviews

One Of The Most Beautiful Books I Have Ever Read
MARCELO IN THE REAL WORLD is quite simply one of the most beautiful and moving stories that I have ever read. By author Francisco X. Stork, this lovely, thoughtful book tells the very special story of Marcelo, a seventeen year-old boy with a high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. Told from Marcelo's point of view, the reader is transported into a very unique way of thinking, bringing Marcelo's world alive with amazing clarity and detail.

In MARCELO IN THE REAL WORLD, Marcelo Sandoval has always experienced music in his head that no one else can hear, and he has always attended a school where his unique differences and abilities have been nurtured and protected. But the summer before his senior year, his father requires Marcelo to work in his law firm's mailroom, so that Marcelo can begin to understand and experience "the real world," and, perhaps, attend the mainstream high school for his final year. At the law firm, Marcelo develops friendships with Jasmine and Wendell. But are they real friendships? Only time will tell. As the summer unfolds, Marcelo learns about many new emotions and ways of life, from competition, jealousy, anger, and desire, to patience, control, wisdom, and strength. When he finds a disturbing photo in a box of documents to be destroyed - a picture of a girl with horrific injuries - Marcelo finally, truly connects with the real world, and begins to understand his place in it. Marcelo learns about pain, suffering, and injustice in the world, as well as what he can do to fight it.

This story is told in the first person by Marcelo, and it his most unusual way of thinking and speaking that completely draws the reader in. It takes Marcelo longer than most of us to thoroughly process input and information (although he processes much MORE information than you or me), and you would think that this would slow down the pace and reading of this story, but it absolutely does not. The reader becomes so completely absorbed in Marcelo's mind that the story speeds along. I was actually shocked when I came to the end of the book. I could not put it down.

All the characters, including Marcelo, are real, alive, and wonderfully developed. Human to the last, each has their own strengths and foibles, and each affects Marcelo (and the reader) in a different way. I believed in these characters; their breadth of emotion brought them off the page and into my life. I applaud Francisco X. Stork and his amazing literary talent for creating this unique world.

While this book is marketed for teens, I think older teens and adults alike will appreciate the unusual and beautiful wisdom of Marcelo. I give MARCELO IN THE REAL WORLD my HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.

What a beautiful book! Fall in love with Marcelo.....
I had picked this book up a couple of times in the last 2 weeks but always set it aside to read something else. Finally I opened it and began - then I could not put it down! I immediately fell in love with the main character, Marcelo, who has some type of cognitive disorder in the autism/Asperger's spectrum. But this book is NOT about the neurobiological condition, but about the HUMAN condition.

Marcelo, age 17, is going to be a senior in high school. He has lived a somewhat coddled and sheltered life - living in a tree house next to the family home and going to a special school for children with disabilities. His father asks that he work the summer at his law firm in order to learn more about the "real world" and about the skills and abilities Marcelo will need for his future. Marcelo hesitantly agrees, knowing that the deal was that if he should do well, he will be permitted to return to his special school versus having to attend the public high school in the fall. Marcelo starts his job, meets his boss Jasmine and learns to make small talk, work and interact with the other employees in the firm, including the son of his father's partner - a playboy with a bad attitude and poor ethics.

In the course of the story, Marcelo learns some secrets about himself, his father, and about a lawsuit in progress that show him that all people are not completely good and that the world is not black and white. His special obsession is religion and there is a lot of spiritual discussion in the book which at times went on a little long, but Marcelo does learn how to differentiate within shades of gray to make a very momentous decision that will change his outlook and his life. Recommend: BUY IT!

Soulful story of reluctant growth toward independence
This is the irresistible story of a 17-year-old boy with an Asperger's Syndrome-like condition, which makes it a challenge for him to decode other people's emotions and facial expressions and to navigate physically and socially in new territory. After years of going to a special-needs school, his plans for a quiet summer of horse-training are thwarted when his father tells him that he wants Marcelo to spend the summer working at his law-office out in "the real world." Marcelo resists the idea, already happy and spiritually satisfied with his current life. Whether his father is in denial about his son's condition, or simply thinks Marcelo too high-functioning to warrant hiding himself away, is an issue both the story and the reader will explore.

Marcelo notes that people often think he doesn't perceive reality, when in fact he perceives far too _much_ reality. When the story begins, his head is often filled with what he calls the "Internal Music" (IM), which is more like the feeling of listening to music rather than music itself. Caught up in the beautiful, reflective symphony in his head (which some call 'remembering' and equate to prayer), he has nevertheless come to understand that others do not hear this music nor always appreciate his extensive 'special interest' in religion.

Integrating himself into the real world, and the IM's place within it, Marcelo discovers new parts of himself when he comes to question other people's thinking and actions in relation to morality. He learns more about the "gray" areas of living, and how to adapt to them in turn, without losing the essential parts of himself.

This fascinating story occurs entirely from Marcelo's viewpoint, yet leaves an entirely different feeling from the brilliant and depressing "The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time." Rather than despairing for Marcelo's friends and family, the reader is left with a sense of peace and perhaps one of envy.

Marcelo's 'limitations,' as we would think of them, put a softer and more beautiful edge on many of the things we've stopped seeing because they long ago became ordinary. His world is no more ordinary than he is himself--not even in its smallest, most unspoken aspect.

Quiet, gorgeous, and entrancing to the end.