Things Not Seen -- Andrew Clements

From Things Not Seen:

It's when I turn on the bathroom light and wipe the fog off the mirror to comb my hair.  It's what I see in the mirror.  It's what I don't see.

I look a second time, and then rub at the mirror again.

I'm not there.

That's what I'm saying.

I'm.  Not.  There.

It's funny.  Take a random storyline, give it to different authors and see what happens.  Robert Cormier's Fade is creepy.  Super creepity creep creep.  Which isn't very surprising, considering his body of work.  Give Andrew Clements the same storyline and we end up with a very different story.

That said, it sure ain't Frindle.  There's a lot of anger in Things Not Seen.  (Granted, there's also quite a lot of anger in The Jacket and in The Janitor's Boy, but this book is different.)  Bobby is invisible, and he's pissed about it.  He meets a girl at the library, Alicia, who is blind -- and she brings the 'Angry Young Woman' character archetype up a notch.  Say the wrong word and she'll explode. 

(She has reason to be angry -- her blindness just happened.  One day she could see and the next she couldn't, and it's irreparable.  Sometimes, when she goes out, her mother follows her at a distance, thinking that because Alicia can't see her, she doesn't know she's there.  Her mother just wants to protect her, of course, but it's easy to understand why it made Alicia so furious, on so many levels.  I'm realizing as I type this that I actually found Alicia, and not Bobby, the most interesting character in the book.) 

Back to Bobby.  His invisibility empowers him in a way -- he realizes very early on that he can hurt his parents by remaining silent.  He also takes delight in being able to roll his eyes without being called on it.  At the same time, it's kind of a strange reverse empowerment -- he's empowered by disappearing. 

Well worth a read.