Things Trilogy by Andrew Clements

Titles: Things Not Seen, Things Hoped For, Things That Are

Author: Andrew Clements

Reviewer: Stephanie

Genre: Teen Science Fiction

Rating: Love

Alerts/Warnings: Things Hoped For is a little creepy.

Premise: Things Not Seen-When fifteen-year-old Bobby wakes up and finds himself invisible, he and his parents and his new blind friend Alicia try to find out what caused his condition and how to reverse it.

Opinions: In a departure from our normal format, I decided to review an entire series. I read the first book "Things Not Seen" several years ago (2005), and loved it. Then in 2006 I read "Things Hoped For" and thought it was wonderful though creepy. Today I read "Things That Are" and felt satisfied.

The Things Trilogy (for lack of better terminology) is a wonderful series about Bobby, a boy who one day wakes up and is invisible. He can't explain it or figure out how this has occured or how to fix it. The first book is from Bobby's perspective. The second is from a girl (seemingly unrelated though SPOILER they are connected.) The third is from Bobby's friend who is blind.

I LOVE this series. I find the ideas behind invisibility interesting and the reprecushions of making someone invisible and then visible repeatedly highly fascinating and a interesting dilemna. I also love that Bobby meets Alicia, a blind girl. The connection of a boy who can see but can't be seen with a girl who can be seen but can't see is wonderful and meaningful to both of these characters.

I would say that the second book did creep me out. Not a little bit, but a lot. (Take it for what you will, I get creeped out easily and with my hyper-active imagination logic sometimes goes out the window.) However, now that I've read the last book, I would be completely willing to read the second one again, and i don't think that I would be as creeped out. (You never know though.)

The third book was wonderfully satisfying. All my questions and unresolved issues from the first two books were answered and resolved by the end of this book. It wasn't a nice neat package, but I like books that don't end in a nice neat package. I am very content with the ending.

This is a great series, and I highly recomend it to anyone that has ever thought about being invisible or thought they were being followed by an invisible person. (But I could be the only one that has ever been so freaked out that I was certain that an invisible person was after me. No, I'm not crazy (well maybe a little bit) I just was dreaming.)