TLC Book Tour: Odd Child Out

I've read all of Gilly Macmillan's novels and loved each of them.  This one is another great novel of suspense. I did have things pretty well figured out by book's end, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of this novel.  I will admit that the cancer diagnosis of Noah when he was seven and the descriptions given about his treatment were hard for me to read.  When my oldest daughter was four she was diagnosed with stage four liver cancer.  I don't shy away from reading things like this, but for some people this would be too sensitive and close to home to read about.  There was no real warning in the synopsis that this was coming, so I was a little unprepared for it.  And Macmillan did pretty well hit the nail on the head with her descriptions of what life is like for children with cancer.

Noah and Abdi are teenage boys and best friends.  When Noah is found floating unconscious in a canal, Abdi isn't speaking (at all. To anyone) about what happened. 

Jim Clemo returns to Macmillan's third novel (he wasn't in the second one) as the investigator in this case. I had to refresh my memory a bit to recall what happened in the first book that affected him so deeply. I like Clemo in both novels, and am hoping he will be someone we see in each story.

I liked the immigrant component to this story, the way Macmillan developed Abdi's family and sharing about what happened to his family when they were in a refugee camp.  

Macmillan's portrayal of Noah is also interesting. Instead of her allowing him to be the poor little sick boy, she delivers a character that is human - with faults - and allows readers to make their own judgement about him.

I look forward to reading Macmillan's work, and think her novels are both entertaining and suspenseful.


Thanks to TLC Book Tours for providing a copy of this book for my review.

For more information visit the HarperCollins website.