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Francisco X. Stork
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Marcelo in the Real World Hardcover – March 1, 2009

by Francisco X. Stork (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 566 ratings
Teachers' pick
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Imagine Curious Incident of the Dog . . . with a romance, and you have the beginnings of this story of a young man struggling with the world outside his head--and the woman who gets inside it.

The term "cognitive disorder" implies there is something wrong with the way I think or the way I perceive reality. I perceive reality just fine. Sometimes I perceive more of reality than others.Marcelo Sandoval hears music that nobody else can hear - part of an autism-like condition that no doctor has been able to identify. But his father has never fully believed in the music or Marcelo's differences, and he challenges Marcelo to work in the mailroom of his law firm for the summer . . . to join "the real world."There Marcelo meets Jasmine, his beautiful and surprising coworker, and Wendell, the son of another partner in the firm. He learns about competition and jealousy, anger and desire. But it's a picture he finds in a file a picture of a girl with half a face that truly connects him with the real world: its suffering, its injustice, and what he can do to fight.
Previous page
  1. Reading age
    8 - 13 years, from customers
  2. Print length
    320 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Grade level
    7 - 9
  5. Lexile measure
    HL700L
  6. Dimensions
    5.75 x 1 x 8.5 inches
  7. Publisher
    Arthur A. Levine Books
  8. Publication date
    March 1, 2009
  9. ISBN-10
    0545054745
  10. ISBN-13
    978-0545054744
  11. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Artfully crafted characters form the heart of Stork's (The Way of the Jaguar) judicious novel. Marcelo Sandoval, a 17-year-old with an Asperger's-like condition, has arranged a job caring for ponies at his special school's therapeutic-riding stables. But he is forced to exit his comfort zone when his high-powered father steers Marcelo to work in his law firm's mailroom (in return, Marcelo can decide whether to stay in special ed, as he prefers, or be mainstreamed for his senior year). Narrating with characteristically flat inflections and frequently forgetting to use the first person, Marcelo manifests his anomalies: he harbors an obsession with religion (he regularly meets with a plainspoken female rabbi, though he's not Jewish); hears internal music; and sleeps in a tree house. Readers enter his private world as he navigates the unfamiliar realm of menial tasks and office politics with the ingenuity of a child, his voice never straying from authenticity even as the summer strips away some of his differences. Stork introduces ethical dilemmas, the possibility of love, and other real world conflicts, all the while preserving the integrity of his characterizations and intensifying the novel's psychological and emotional stakes. Not to be missed. Ages 14–up. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Grade 8 Up—Like Christopher Boone, the protagonist in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Doubleday, 2003), Marcelo Sandoval is a high-functioning, extremely self-aware teenager with Asperger's syndrome. He has an empathetic mother and a father, Arturo, who appears to be less empathetic as he pushes Marcelo to live in the "real world." The form the real world takes is a summer job in the mailroom at Arturo's law office. The teen is forced to think on his feet, multitask, and deal with duplicitous people who try to take advantage of him. Over the course of a summer, Marcelo learns that he can function in society; he is especially surprised to find that he can learn to read people's expressions, even to the point of knowing whom he can and cannot trust. Writing in a first-person narrative, Stork does an amazing job of entering Marcelo's consciousness and presenting him as a dynamic, sympathetic, and wholly believable character. At a little over 300 pages, the story drags at some points, bogging down in the middle. However, the dilemmas that Marcelo faces are told in a compelling fashion, which helps to keep readers engaged.—Wendy Smith-D'Arezzo, Loyola College, Baltimore, MD
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Arthur A. Levine Books; First Edition (March 1, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0545054745
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0545054744
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 8 - 13 years, from customers
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ HL700L
  • Grade level ‏ : ‎ 7 - 9
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 1 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 566 ratings

About the author

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Francisco X. Stork

Francisco X. Stork

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Francisco X. Stork was born in Monterrey, Mexico. He came to El Paso, Texas with his adoptive father when he was nine-years-old. He studied English Literature and Philosophy at Spring Hill College, a Jesuit College in Mobile Alabama. He obtained an M.A. from Harvard University where he studied Latin American Literature with, among others, Octavio Paz, the Mexican Nobel Laureate. After four years of graduate studies at Harvard, he entered Columbia Law School. After graduating from law school, he practiced law in a number of private and public settings while pursuing his vocation to write. For the last fifteen years of his legal career, Francisco worked as an attorney for a Massachusetts State Agency that develops affordable housing. Francisco retired from the practice of law in April of 2015.

Francisco is the author of ten novels. The Way of the Jaguar was a recipient of the 1999 Chicano/Latino Literary Award. Behind the Eyes was a New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age 2007. Marcelo in the Real World received the 2010 Schneider Family Book Award and was published in 17 countries. It was named a YALSA Top 10 Best Books for Young Adults, 2010. The Last Summer of the Death Warriors received was the recipient of the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award and the International Latino Book Award. The Memory of Light was the recipient of the Tomás Rivera Award. Disappeared received the Young Adult Award from the Texas Institute of Letters and was a Walter Dean Myers Award Honor Book. Illegal, was the recipient of the In the Margins Award, the Young Adult Award from the Texas Institute of Letters and the International Latino Book Award. On the Hook published received four starred reviews and was the recipient of the International Latino Book Award. His novel, I Am Not Alone, a thriller/love story with a mental health component, will be published July, 2023.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
566 global ratings
marcelito....
4 Stars
marcelito....
i have had this book for like 2 months but lagged on reading it but now im three fourths of the way till the end and so far its really good but not addicting
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Top reviews from the United States

Mari Biella
5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful coming-of-age story
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2013
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'Marcelo in the Real World' is a beautiful, affecting novel about a teenager's coming of age and learning about `the real world'. Though it is categorised as a YA book, readers of all ages could enjoy and appreciate it, not least for the excellent writing and intriguing plot, which pulls you in and keeps you reading to the last page.

Marcelo Sandoval is a teenager with an Asperger's-like condition, who has always attended a special school, where his differences have been understood and respected. However, his sheltered existence is thrown into disarray one summer when his father Arturo arranges for Marcelo to work in a law firm and experience `the real world'. Marcelo reluctantly agrees, and is drawn into a world he finds barely comprehensible: a world of frustration, envy, and lies, but also of friendship and hope.

What surprises and impresses me most about this novel is the way in which Stork gets into Marcelo's head and makes him real and sympathetic. It never feels forced or unnatural, despite Marcelo's anomalies (he hears internal music, and is fascinated with religion, to the extent that he frequently meets with a Rabbi, despite not being Jewish). As the summer wears on, Marcelo is introduced to the real world in both its alluring and ugly aspects: he finds himself becoming attracted to his co-worker Jasmine, an experience which he cannot quite comprehend in conventional terms, and is also caught up in a moral dilemma which will have an effect on his own future happiness.

The emotional stakes are raised considerably when Marcelo runs into this two-pronged ethical predicament. Firstly, he finds himself being effectively blackmailed by his co-worker Wendell, whose ugly attitude to women and sex shocks the innocent, gentle Marcelo. Then, he is shocked (as we are) to discover that his father's firm is engaged in a morally questionable lawsuit. Marcelo could take the path of least resistance and bury his head in the sand, or he could stick his neck out, risking his own future happiness, and do what he believes to be right.

The writing is beautiful throughout, exquisitely evoking Marcelo's inner life and situation. Stork often hits the nail on the head in terms of describing an emotion: `In my chest, I feel a twang - a discordant note, like when the string on a guitar breaks in the middle of a song.' We watch Marcelo's progress through the real world and worry for him; however emotionally invested we feel in Marcelo as a character, we see clearly - as he occasionally does not - the consequences of the unfolding situation, and are desperate for everything to work out for him.

The religious references may not be to everyone's taste, but they shouldn't put anyone off reading this lovely book. This is a journey into a world which is simultaneously unfamiliar and everyday, and is both entertaining and rewarding. Highly recommended.
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EpicFehlReader
4.0 out of 5 stars Life in "The Real World" teaches Marcelo to embrace & express his own voice
Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2017
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3.5 Stars

Seventeen year old Marcelo (pronounced "Marselo") is described as having an "autism-like" condition. That's as close as doctors can come to defining his unique gift of being able to hear music where no one else can. Unfortunately for Marcelo, his father doesn't see anything particularly rare or special about his son's gift. Instead, the father pushes Marcelo to take a job in the mailroom of his law firm --- dad's reasoning being that the position will teach Marcelo useful skills about "the real world" and put him on the path to success, rather than let his mind run away with creative dreamer fancies.

Once in the mailroom environment, Marcelo meets and befriends the lovely Jasmine and Wendell, the son of one of the partners at the law firm. As his father anticipated, the first days were an experience for Marcelo, to say the least, as another "autism-like" trait that Marcelo displays is a struggle with interpreting facial expressions. But thanks to classes Marcelo attends to help him learn tips & tricks to help him out with this (instruction in voice inflection, speech patterns, and the like), it actually doesn't take him too long to find his way. It's a tough time for the reader though. We have to watch Marcelo navigate around co-workers who assume he's mentally incompetent, or those who try to bully or take advantage of him because he can't immediate recognize that he is being tricked. This is the "real world" his father so desperately wanted him to be a part of... thanks, dad!

Marcelo develops a love for religious texts and often turns to reading or reciting scripture to himself to calm his nerves when the world starts to overwhelm him. At one point, he finds himself unexpectedly caught up in one of his father's most important legal cases, one that will push Marcelo to fight for what he believes in, regardless of what others around him might say.

After being published in 2009, in 2010 this novel was awarded the Schneider Family Book Award for Teen Fiction, an award that recognizes fiction that focuses on characters with disabilities.

I've come across pages of glowing reviews for this one, and while I did very much enjoy it, I can't comfortably join the 5 star crowd here. The story had some dents for me. I loved Marcelo, the way his mind worked and his unique style of interacting with others even if he didn't (admittedly) always understand all the unspoken social cues. Something in that I found myself relating to quite a bit. His friendship with Jasmine is sweet & lovely and I found myself wishing he and Wendell could get on a bit better. So the characters undeniably spoke to me on some level. My trouble was with the writing. Some of the characters came off just a little too weirdly staccato in their speech and mannerisms for my enjoyment. The flow of things just felt a shade off from natural. In Marcelo's case it's understandable and almost expected, given that he's been diagnosed with a "autism-like" condition, but that doesn't explain the other characters!

Also, if I'm being honest with my reading experience... there was just something a little... lackluster maybe?... with the plot as a whole, as far as pace and plot action. I was all about this story in the early pages! Those first few chapters definitely had me hooked. But this was one of those books where I could feel my love and interest of it slowly trickling down instead of racing up. Reading pages on end and then realizing later, "you know, that was actually a whole lotta nothing going on"... and the book's not even that long! Still, I did quite like Stork's message here -- the way Marcelo finds his own voice in a sea of so many others telling him what he needs or what he should do --- it made me curious to try out some of Stork's other works just to compare, so I now have a couple on order. Even with the elements I myself found problematic, I would still solidly recommend this to anyone looking for YA reads featuring the theme of autism and enhanced abilities.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Mª Rosa
4.0 out of 5 stars Fantástico
Reviewed in Spain on December 29, 2023
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Buen libro y además en inglés...
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Mums account
5.0 out of 5 stars Great for my course
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 13, 2019
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Great read and an eye opener for autism
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Lara Sprenger
5.0 out of 5 stars Perfecr
Reviewed in Germany on December 29, 2018
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My book of th year
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Tejaswi Neeli
3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
Reviewed in India on March 26, 2015
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It's not that good as i expected but it's just ok!
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ジョー
5.0 out of 5 stars 楽しんでいます
Reviewed in Japan on March 10, 2014
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かなり早く届いたので、読書会（ブッククラブ）の日まで余裕を持って読むことができました。感謝です。
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