What a fascinating read. I loved it. Told through the eyes of Marcelo, a 16-year-old with Asperger’s Syndrome, it is a novel that inevitably will be compared to Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. And it is as good, but quite different.

Marcelo’s father insists that his son take summer employment in the mailroom of his highly successful corporate law firm, instead of in a protected environment with the ponies the boy so loves. The idea is that he will learn to cope and prove himself in ‘the real world’. How does a gentle, highly logical, spiritual young man cope with this frenetic world with its corporate ethics? How does he relate to Jasmine in the mailroom, or Wendel, the other boss’s son, when he thinks so differently?

For ages 13 and up, though I suspect older readers will enjoy it most, both for its ideas and its story.

Kathy Kozlowski is from Readings Carlton.