The Goldfish Boy

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The Goldfish Boy , by Lisa Thompson, is about a boy named Matthew who barely leaves his room. But Matt isn’t like other kids his age. He has an obsession with being clean to the point that he fears other people, and his skin is cracked and worn out from the constant cleaning. Instead, he watches the world around him through his window and records what his neighbors are doing and when they’re doing it in his journals. When his neighbor, Teddy, a three-year-old boy, suddenly goes missing one day, Matthew is determined to solve the mystery, using his notes to help him.

I really enjoyed reading this book because Matthew tells his story like he has a mystery, too, for the reader to figure out. Matthew believes his baby brother, Callum’s, death was his fault, and as the story progresses, you learn more and more about how it relates to his obsessive-compulsive disorder. The book itself has its own unique writing style, narrated by a twelve-year-old boy who tells you the relationships between himself and other people. I liked his nickname, “Goldfish Boy,” and how much it fit his personality; like a fish, he makes no commotion and is just watching, and his room is described as a fishbowl. Teddy’s sister, Casey, once asked him, “Doesn’t it get boring swimming in there all day long? Up and down, up and down…Have you got one of those little treasure chests in there that open and close with all the bubbles? Hmmm, little fishy?…How can you breathe when you’re out of your tank, Goldfish Boy? Why don’t you die?”, which really got me thinking. Overall, The Goldfish Boy is a really good book, and I definitely recommend people read this, especially if they like mystery in the form of a calmer, quieter book, and if they feel like they don’t fit in.


Reviewed By:

Author Lisa Thompson
Star Count 4.5/5
Format Hard
Page Count 320 pages
Publisher Scholastic Press
Publish Date 2017-Feb-28
ISBN 9781338053920
Amazon Buy this Book
Issue March 2017
Category Tweens
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