Mockingbird- Kathryn Erskine

Image from Amazon

Synopsis (from Amazon)

11-year-old Caitlin has Asperger’s syndrome, and has always had her older brother, Devon, to explain the confusing things around her. But when Devon is killed in a tragic school shooting, Caitlin has to try and make sense of the world without him. With her dad spending most of his time crying in the shower, and her life at school becoming increasingly difficult, it doesn’t seem like things will ever get better again.

Review

I read a really nice review of this book last year and added it to my wishlist. By the time I actually got around to buying it I had kind of forgotten why I had put it on my list. I remembered that I had read a review but didn’t really remember much about what the review had said, or even what the book was about. I mainly bought it because I wanted to add new books to my Kindle before I went o holiday and it was quite a lot cheaper on Kindle than as a paper book (I really have a thing about Kindle books having to be cheaper).

I was a little unsure about having Asperger’s and a school shooting in the same book. It just seemed as if Erskine needed to add an extra issue to make her story a book. Actually though on reading the book I didn’t find it to be so. It was really interesting to see the shooting through Caitlin’s eyes. No, that’s not true really because the shooting didn’t so much come into it. It was more seeing the loss caused by the shooting and the effects of it on other people through Caitlin’s eyes was the interesting thing. It didn’t really matter much what the sad event was, it was the response to it that really mattered.

I thought the way Caitlin’s voice was captured was really authentic, you could tell that Erskine was drawing from personal experience.

It was funny, and sad, and sweet. I loved Caitlin.

It’s a quick and easy read without loosing any substance and I would really recommend it to anyone.

5/5

Buy it:

Kindle (£2.62)

Paperback (£4.12)