Review: SHE IS NOT INVISIBLE by Marcus Sedgwick

I love a good mystery.  Especially a beautifully-written, well-plotted mystery like SHE IS NOT INVISIBLE by Marcus Sedgwick.  Told from the point of view of a visually impaired teen, this is the story of a missing father, a family in trouble, and a daughter who has to have faith that she can fix things.

Roaring Brook Press, April 2014.

Laureth Peak is the daughter of a famed, but struggling novelist.  Her dad is known for flights of fancy, but this last trip has left her mother in a tizzy, and Laureth wondering if she knows as much about her dad as she thought she did.  When, while helping her dad with his fan mail, she discovers a letter from an American who has recovered her father’s notebook, Laureth knows something’s wrong.  For one thing, the notebook was found in New York.  Which is not where her father is supposed to be.  For another, her father hasn’t been returning her phone calls, which is unlike him.

So she buys herself and her much younger brother airline tickets to the states and leaves while her mother is out of town visiting family.  Soon she’s in a brand new American city, with only her bizarre little brother as a guide, trying to find her father, clue by clue, all while trying not to let her under-age-ness — or her inability to see — get in her way.

This is a beautiful story of family, of friendship, of trust and adventure.  I love the way Sedgwick showed the world through the eyes of a blind girl.  The way it was easy to forget sometimes, that she was different.  The way she both took care of her brother, and the way the little boy took care of her.  Her bravery, her mistakes, and her story are brilliant.  And I cannot fathom a world in which this book does not get an Edgar nod.  Because around every corner, even when you think you’ve figured something out, Marcus Sedgwick takes you for a ride.