I thought the ending was a tad rushed, if anything - it's perhaps one of the very few recent books I'd say might benefit from being longer! This is partly because it’s covering so much ground. There's a couple of things which stop this from being one of my very top reads so far this year, despite the buzz it has going around it. The novel this is being compared to most is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon, but while that left me completely cold (I appreciate I'm in the minority there!), this was far more engaging, and from my limited experience of Asperger's, I felt Caitlin was a much more realistic character than Mark Haddon's Christopher. There are also lots of parallels drawn with the fabulous To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, with Caitlin taking after Scout and Devon taking after Jem - I really liked these, as a massive fan of Harper Lee's classic novel. I also thought the way the other children - and even certain teachers - found Caitlin hard to deal with to be very realistic. Watching the way Caitlin interacted with those around her, especially a young boy called Michael who she grew close to, the school bully Josh, who's the cousin of one of the boys who'd perpetrated the shooting, and her counsellor Mrs Brook.

However, once I managed to get past that, I found this to be a well-written, thoughtful, and moving look at tragedy and at Asperger's syndrome. I struggled to get into this one - Caitlin's narrative voice takes some getting used to. With her dad struggling to cope and Caitlin no longer having her brother to explain to her things she doesn't understand, the young narrator must seek closure on the tragedy herself. Mockingbird is the story of Caitlin, an 11-year old girl with Asperger's syndrome trying to recover from the death of her brother Devon in a school shooting. I'd have liked it to have been a bit longer, but well worth reading. Summary: Moving and thoughtful novel about a young girl with Asperger's grieving for her brother, killed in a school shooting.

Mockingbird book caitlin