Casebook

A Novel

De: Mona Simpson

Narrado por: Nick Podehl

From the acclaimed and award-winning author of Anywhere But Here and My Hollywood, a powerful new novel about a young boy’s quest to uncover the mysteries of his unraveling family. What he discovers turns out to be what he least wants to know: the inner workings of his parents’ lives. And even then he can’t stop searching.

Miles Adler-Hart starts eavesdropping to find out what his mother is planning for his life. When he learns instead that his parents are separating, his investigation deepens, and he enlists his best friend, Hector, to help. Both boys are in thrall to Miles' unsuspecting mother, Irene, who is "pretty for a mathematician". They rifle through her dresser drawers, bug her telephone lines, and strip-mine her computer, only to find that all clues lead them to her bedroom, and put them on the trail of a mysterious stranger from Washington, D.C.

Their amateur detective work starts innocently but quickly takes them to the far reaches of adult privacy as they acquire knowledge that will affect the family’s well-being, prosperity, and sanity. Burdened with this powerful information, the boys struggle to deal with the existence of evil and concoct modes of revenge on their villains that are both hilarious and naïve. Eventually, haltingly, they learn to offer animal comfort to those harmed and to create an imaginative path to their own salvation.

Casebook brilliantly reveals an American family both - both coming apart at the seams and, simultaneously, miraculously reconstituting itself to sustain its members through their ultimate trial. Mona Simpson, once again, demonstrates her stunning mastery, giving us a boy hero for our times whose story remains with us long after the the novel's end.

©2014 Mona Simpson (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved

A great broken family 'coming of age story'

Well drawn characters, excellent feel for the 'voice' of the young protagonist as his world expands with maturity.

Enjoyable and fun

Clever Mona Simpson wrote a book that tells the story of a woman's divorce and subsequent love life through the eyes of her adolescent son. So you get his perspective, which is entertaining, and underneath it hers, which triggers your heart.

It's a good story about moms, dads, sisters, adolescence, love and divorce and all that happens in between. It takes place in California. It's easy to listen to. I enjoyed it.

Just OK.

I really wanted to like this. I was hoping for an adult version of Harriet the Spy, told from a boy's perspective. Instead, I got a front seat for the end of a marriage told through one boy's love for his mother. The story itself would be fine if the title didn't gear me up for a sleuth-like tale. The spying felt a bit forced, as if it were an after-thought or a device introduced to filter the narrative. Don't get me wrong - the book gathers steam as it goes and the second-half is better than the first, though I think part of that was my willingness to shift focus and accept the story for what it was rather than what I wanted it to be.

So in summary: it's a fine story if you're looking for a book about the complexity of relationships. If you're only buying it because you liked the cover or title - skip it.

Footnote: Laugh, cry, collect stray animals

Mona Simpson nails the nerd coming of age genre, and the narrator's Eli voice is fantastic. Also his Hector and Boops voices.

Waste of time

Wasted an audible credit didn’t realize this was
a pre teen novel. No interest in POV of 14 yo
kid horrible. Simpson has written some light reading entertaining books this isn’t one of them. Would give 0 stars if permitted