Invisible

//Invisible// by Pete Hautman  //Invisible// by Pete Hautman is a book abou t a seventeen-year-old boy named Doug Hanson who thinks of himself as "invisible". Doug is the narrator of the book. Many people see Doug as a freak, though. Not only does he get beat up after school, the girl he stares at from across the room, the prettiest girl in school, calls him a worm and wants nothing to do with him. Doug spends a lot of his time working on an elaborate model train left for him by his grandfather. He also spends time hanging out with his best friend and next door neighbor, Andy Morrow. Andy and Doug are total oppisites. Andy is a popular football player that could date any girl he wants. Doug is a math whiz, as well as an artistic and engineering prodigy. Aside from their differences, the two are inseparable and talk about everything, except the incident at Tuttle place a few years ago. Doug is supposed to take a certain type of medicine. He resists the help of his psychiatrist and hides his medication. He really likes Melissa Haverman, and so he starts spying on her. One day he almost gets caught spying on her. As weird as Doug is, his obsession to building his railroad made of matches and his nightly talks with Andy are the only things that set him straight. Doug's behavior becomes increasingly anxious and nervous as the book progresses. You get the sense that he is holding something back. He is forced to remember what actually happened on that fateful night at Tuttle place. The truth is that Andy is dead. He was a victim of the fire they accidentally set to the house. Doug sets fire to his beloved model in the end and goes to the hospital. It is deabatable whether Doug actually died or not. Read this book, and you can decide for yourself.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I thought Pete Hautman did a great job writing it. One thing I really liked about it was how he described Doug's mental health throughtout the book by his words and actions. The sequencing of events got a little confusing at times, which threw me off some. Another thing I liked was the comparison between best friends Doug and Andy. They had nothing in common, but still managed to be really close. Overall, the book was an exciting journey that had a strange, but interesting ending.
 * By: Dustin Wilder**