I read this book for a book club, and I almost gave up on it after only a few pages. The author assaults the reader with cliches and drippy metaphors ("Marianne brightens like a rainbow after rain"). I felt like the author's writing style hindered the story. The fact that she was a lawyer comes through at certain parts in the book, which are the better parts. The fact that she is also the mother of children with autism gave her credibility where her writing didn't.

Injected into the story is the inevitable love interest, with all the predictable and saccharine qualities that go with this kind of writing ("Love is a blue jolt that crackles between them"). The real inventiveness in the story was Marianne's disturbing "creation" of mental illness where it hadn't been before. Also, the character Doaks seemed the most believable (and likeable) and kept the story a little more grounded than it might have been without him.

As for the ending, I saw it coming a mile away. The author wrapped up the story with such absurdity I laughed out loud. After the elaborate tests, observations, therapy sessions, and medications the supposedly autistic character of Max is subjected to, it turns out he doesn't have all of these complicated disorders as previously diagnosed--he's only bipolar! I couldn't decide if the author was oversimplifying with a fairy tale ending or making a statement about the field of psychiatry and its tendency to over-diagnose and label odd behavior as a disorder. Either way, I found this book to be more ridiculous than realistic, though there were interesting psychological and behavioral aspects.