Book written by Andrew Clements, published 2002.
What would you do if you were invisible? It’s a common enough question, and I’m willing to bet that we all have an answer. But for fifteen-year-old Bobby Phillips, this isn’t just some fun “what if” scenario. This is real. Bobby wakes up for school one Tuesday morning, and he’s simply not there. No rhyme or reason, no vat of toxic waste or bite from a radioactive chameleon. Bobby Phillips is completely invisible, and it’s not all that fun. The only person that makes being invisible bearable is Alicia. Alicia is blind, but she seems to be the only person that can truly see the real Bobby. But it’s not enough that Alicia can see the real him. Everyone else who’s looking for Bobby, from the social worker to the nosy next-door neighbor, needs to be able to be to physically see him or life is going to explode way more out of control.
This has been one of my favorite novels since the fourth grade. When I was a kid, I read the book for the invisibility bit. Bobby had a great answer to the “what would I do if I was invisible” icebreaker, and it was fun to watch him sneak around and navigate through the new obstacles in his life. But what’s kept me reading through the years is all of the depth in the many other things that are not seen. Every teenager feels like a part of them is invisible and that they can’t share that part with anyone, and that’s a huge theme in this story. And Clements addresses that struggle with the reassurance that the people who really care about you will try to understand what you’re going through and make those invisible bits seen. Bobby’s gumption through the entire ordeal was also very inspiring. He's invisible, he’s freaked out by it, but he goes into what he calls, “Greek warrior mode”. There’s a new level of power he holds over the people in his life, new rules to live by. So as much as his condition scares him, Bobby also used it to give him confidence and courage in the more important aspects of his life, like his relationship with his parents. It’s an interesting take on being invisible, and it adds a level of maturity and responsibility to the story.
One more thing to make note of is the writing style. Clements did a really good job of writing a relatable narrator. It’s first-person from Bobby’s point of view, and I was impressed this time around with how easy it was to stay engaged in the story. The story spans over a month, and there are more than a few lulls in the timeline where Bobby just doesn’t do much (he’s invisible, after all, and his parents don’t want him roaming around willy-nilly). But even in these stretches where Bobby just stays inside the house and doesn’t go anywhere, it doesn’t feel boring. There’s still a lot going on inside Bobby’s head, and not only was all of that thinking easy to follow, I felt that it greatly contributed to Bobby’s character development.
I highly recommend this book. It’s definitely worth the buy, and even if you only borrow it from the library and read it once, I think you’ll find you’re a better reader for it too.
The only thing to be aware of beforehand is that Bobby does spend, like, half the book butt-naked (how else would you expect an invisible kid to sneak around without arousing suspicion?), but he doesn’t go into details.
This is your spoiler warning: Leave these things unseen unless you've read the book! Otherwise, stay tuned!
"Everything and everybody else changed . . . It's like I disappeared along with the whole rest of the world."
Like I said, I appreciate the depth of all the things not seen in this book, and now I get to discuss them a little bit! One of the first things Clements addresses in this story is that Bobby doesn’t feel seen by his parents—in an emotional and intellectual way, not just physically. He’s their kid, and they love him (they aren’t neglectful or abusive or anything), but part of the struggle of being fifteen years old is that you’re starting to grow into your own person. You’ve got your own ideas for handling your problems and you’re becoming more capable of doing things yourself, but there are parents out there that struggle to recognize that about their kids. They still feel the need to take responsibility for what goes wrong in their teen’s life, especially if what happens wasn’t their fault. That’s Bobby’s beef with his parents. His parents are too caught up in how they’re supposed to fix Bobby’s issue and how his invisibility will affect their lives without acknowledging if Bobby’s okay or how he’s doing with all of that. And this is something that his invisibility gives Bobby the power to change. Because he’s invisible, his parents have to be made more aware of how he’s feeling and how he’s coping. They can’t start enforcing their old rules because Bobby could disappear from their lives in a more permanent way. And Bobby is a teenager, so his method of getting their attention is a little bratty in true angsty-teen fashion, but it works.
I loved that Clements wrote a foil for Bobby in Sheila. When Sheila woke up and discovered that she wasn’t there anymore, she didn’t tell her parents. She didn’t confide in them about any of her issues leading up to her “disappearance” either. So when she physically went invisible, she just let it be. When she’s on the phone with Bobby, she says, “I was already disappearing, a little at a time. It was better happening all at once. And now I don’t want to go back . . . I like who I am, and I’ve got a life that works fine for me. So I’m going with it.” I thought it was interesting that for Bobby, being invisible was an opportunity to save his relationship with his parents, but it was a way for Sheila to save herself. When Bobby felt like no one could see him, he spoke up and made himself heard, but Sheila accepted it and started taking responsibility for herself. In both cases, invisibility woke both Bobby and Sheila up to their own lives.
I could also go on and on about Bobby and Alicia, but I’ll just say this: I love that Bobby and Alicia can be bluntly honest with each other. They match each other’s fluency in sarcasm, but they don’t need it. They call each other out when they use sarcasm as a defense, and they feel comfortable talking to each other about things that other people normally dodge, like blindness and anxiety. That kind of psychological security is really important for younger readers to see in friendships. In some of these other YA books that I’ve been reading lately, even if two characters have known each other for a really long time, they still keep secrets from each other and are afraid of breaking in front of someone they claim to trust. I guess this is all for the sake of drama (because, no offense, teenagers really can be overly dramatic about some things), but I think it’s more important to demonstrate to readers that real friends won’t take harsh words or tears personally. They will understand that it’s just a way of expressing pain, and they stick it through anyway. So I guess that’s the real beauty of the story: Lots of people feel invisible in lots of different ways, but there’s always going to be someone that sees you, and they see you because they care.
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