Aimee Bender

I couldn't decide if the author is neurodiverse or if she was just writing about a character who is. Mona is obsessed with numbers, and she doesn't quite fit in with other people. Of course, everyone in the whole book is just a little bit off: her father with his hypochondria, Mr Jones wearing mood numbers and pretty much ignoring his customers, the new science teacher with burns on his arms (Mona keeps thinking they are from science experiments, but I think they are self-inflicted). Mona thinks that when a number appears in your yard that will be the age you die, because it happened to be true twice. She doesn't know how to handle her father's illness. He was kind of her role model, getting her to be involved in running. Her mother just wants her to be normal, to get excited about birthdays and buy a dress.
Mona buys an ax and brings it to the classroom. This is definitely not something people usually do.
I can't see what other readers think is 'magical realsim' in this novel. Yes, things are off kilter, but that's all in Mona's perception.
The book ends with a crisis, off kilter again, but it allows Mona to break through her worries.… (more)

A sci-fi-fantasy family-relationships novel that follows Rose from being eight years old until her early twenties. She finds she has a gift/superpower/curse of being able to taste the emotions of whoever has made a meal to the extent of being able to place the factory where a processed food is made. For a young girl this is a disturbing superpower and she struggles to find food bland or fresh and untouched enough to be edible. Her brother, meanwhile, seems to have the ability to disappear. Her parents are often absent too and she is negotiating life without much guidance. It is an intriguing novel. I struggled to engage with the characters much. George is the sympathetic friend and seemed a good person and the owners of the French restaurant where Rose finds somewhere she can be are too.… (more)