Casebook

by Mona Simpson

From the acclaimed and award-winning author: a beguiling new novel about an eavesdropping boy working to discover the obscure mysteries of his unraveling family. He uncovers instead what he least wants to know: the workings of his parents' private lives. And even then he can't stop snooping.

Miles Adler-Rich, helped by his friend Hector, spies and listens in on his separating parents. Both boys are in thrall to Miles's unsuspecting mother, Irene, who is "pretty for a mathematician." They rifle through her dresser drawers and strip-mine her computer diary, finding that all leads pull them straight into her bedroom, and into questions about a stranger from Washington, D.C., who weaves in and out of their lives. Their amateur detective work starts innocently but soon takes them to the far reaches of adult privacy as they acquire knowledge that will affect the family's well-being, prosperity, and sanity. Once burdened with this powerful information, the boys struggle to deal with the existence of evil, and proceed to concoct hilarious modes of revenge on their villains and eventually, haltingly, learn to offer animal comfort to those harmed and to create an imaginative path to their own salvation.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Young Adult, Literary Fiction, Coming Of Age, Book Club, Family

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Mona Simpson was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, then moved to Los Angeles as a young teenager. Her father was a recent immigrant from Syria and her mother was the daughter of a mink farmer and the first person in her family to attend college. Simpson went to Berkeley, where she studied poetry. She worked as a journalist before moving to New York to attend Columbia’s MFA program. During graduate school, she published her first short stories in Ploughshares, The Iowa Review and Mademoiselle. She stayed in New York and worked as an editor at The Paris Review for five years while finishing her first novel, Anywhere But Here. After that, she wrote The Lost Father, A Regular Guy and Off Keck Road.

Her work has been awarded several prizes: A Whiting Prize, A Guggenheim, a grant from the NEA, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a Lila Wallace Readers Digest Prize, a Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, Pen Faulkner finalist, and most recently a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

She worked ten years on My Hollywood. “It’s the book that took me too long because it meant to much to me,” she says.

Mona lives in Santa Monica with her two children and Bartelby the dog.

For more about upcoming readings and events, visit Mona's website http://www.monasimpson.com
and her Facebook author page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mona-Si...

Reviews

[emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

for a while when i was 17 and newly back into reading, i got all my books from two sources:
- the young adult contemporary section at american paradise Target™️
- recommendation lists of weird quirky underread adult literary fiction i checked out from my local library

neither went very well, but at least the first category was fun.

this was from the second.

part of a series i'm doing in which i review books i read a long time ago

[Kari · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm going to be upfront, I didn't finish Casebook. I have read some good reviews for the book and was looking forward to reading it. Unfortunately, I think I am in the minority when it comes to this book. The book I read wasn't the book I thought I was getting. I got about a third of the way through and gave up.

There are a few reasons that this book just didn't work for me. I didn't really like the way it was written. I know that for some people, it will work but I just couldn't get into the flow of the book. It was like Miles was just randomly telling us about things that happened to him after his parents split up. It felt very disjointed and I never got a handle on time frames for any of it. There also seemed to be a jumble of characters and I couldn't keep everyone straight. Finally, there were weird footnotes that were supposed to be from his friend Hector. I found those weird and I didn't get the point. So, I'll just chalk this on up to being not a good fit for me. Check out what others are saying ( Maybe you will "get it".

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 stars Casebook is a creative novel about a typical divorce from the vantage of a teenage boy. Mona Simpson has lived around boys because she writes from their world. I enjoyed the main character, Miles, as he sleuths his way through family life. All children love to eves-drop on their parents: it’ considered reconnaissance in knowing the enemy’s game plan. Simpson takes that premise and writes a clever novel about divorce from a kid’s perspective.

Miles starts his snooping when he was nine and wanted to know ahead of time what intentions his mother has for his free time. At the age of nine, Miles wanted to watch “Survivor” to improve his social standing at school. Nothing is more important to Miles than being able to watch the show. Mile’s sleuthing results in learning unsettling facts of his parent’s marriage. The more he learns increases his spying appetite. His spying becomes his obsession, with his best friend Hector (who seems to have a crush on Mile’s family life). Simpson writes Miles and Hector as boys who are not popular and working to be included in the cool kid peer group. The boys’ observations on family life, marriage, and adult relationships are hilarious. The boys’ navigation through Middle School and High School are also comical.

The spying goes on through their teen years. Both boys are interested in the dynamics of their parent’s life: their marriages, divorces, and dating life. They discover information that is above their abilities to process. They get themselves in some pickles of which they cleverly get out. This would be a great family movie. It’s like “The Parent Trap” in children plotting and getting themselves into some scrappy situations. If you are a fan of “The Parent Trap” or are amused by some of the clever programming on The Disney Channel, you will be a fan of this book. My only criticism is it does drag here and there. But when I thought, “OK, I’m bored now” something funny happens.

It’s a fun book that looks at the unsettling affects of divorce and dating to the children involved. Adults think children are resilient, which they are; nonetheless, adult situations, such as divorce, are confusing to children. I’ll read more of her work.

[Julie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found the synopsis of this book to be entirely misleading. I didn’t encounter any blatant evil, just stale characters slogging through monotony. This is told from the perspective of Miles, who is nothing but a nosy kid lacking direction. His parents get divorced and his mom starts dating a loser. So Miles takes it upon himself to find any unsavory tidbit he can about Eli to discredit the promises he made - over the course of six very long years. The narrative is a disjointed stream-of-consciousness that just didn’t work for me. It’s like Miles expected his reader to be familiar with all of the characters in his orbit and be in on his inside jokes and characters from page one.

I really struggled with this whole book and had to force myself to finish it. I disliked Miles for obsessing over Eli, I hated Eli for his deception, and I couldn’t respect Miles’ mom for letting Eli affect her so much. With so many characters caught up in their own misery, it was just painful to read.

I received a complimentary copy of this book via the Amazon Vine program.

[Erika · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know there are a lot of reviews out there talking about all the problems in this book. I'm just gonna say straight out - none of that stuff bothered me. I know Miles sometimes sounded like a teenager and the next page sounded like an adult. I felt like that was normal. His best friend Hector (maybe gay? maybe Miles is gay too? who knows?) had the same kind of thing happening, but I felt they were both characters I could identify with, and I could have when I was in high school, too.

I liked the Harriet The Spy vibe going on when Miles and Hector were listening in on phone conversations, trying to find out if The Mims (Miles' mom) was ever going to be happy again after the divorce. I liked the private investigator they hired to look into Eli, the new guy. I liked the way this was mostly a story about growing up and worrying about parents and being a friend. Parents are real people, too, and it's a really hard time finding that out and still being a kid.

Also, at the private school the kids attend there is a motto they live by and it is: "Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? Will it improve upon the silence?" I think I'm going to make that my motto.

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book in ways I didn't expect - perhaps because it reminded me of so many things I loved when I was a kid. Harriet the Spy, for instance - I read that book over and over again because I loved the idea of looking into windows, of observing people in the neighborhood and the world and trying to figure out things about them - all kids are snoops, right? It made me think of hanging around on the upstairs landing when my parents had a dinner party and after I was supposed to go to bed - just listening to the adults. I never wanted to go to bed because I was positive I'd miss something.

Our hero, Miles, and his friend, Hector, spy on and listen in to Miles' divorcing parents. They snoop their computers, their phone calls, try to figure out things about the new boyfriend (who seems very suspicious to them). Much of what they learn is confusing and a bit scary - what do they do with their suspicions? What is this adult world all about? Will Hector's mother be okay?

Ms. Simpson captures the confusion and glamour of kids just learning about the grown-up world and trying to fit together the pieces. Moving and profound, Casebook offers a glimpse into a family coming apart and changing through the eyes of a very smart and cool kid who just wants to understand. Highly recommended.

[Robert Blumenthal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been a huge fan of Mona Simpson ever since Anywhere But Here. In this novel, she tackles what I believe to be a difficult task in writing from the perspective of an adolescent teenage boy. And she never makes the mistake that some novelists do trying to utilize their creative writing skills and write in a manner that is not consistent with the narrator. In being true to her task, the writing can be a bit simple, abrupt and nonsequitor, just like a teenage boy. It is essentially a novel of a boy dealing with his parents separation and divorce, while trying to find out info about his mom's new boyfriend. It is basically a coming of age tale, with a bit of a mystery intertwined (who is this man Eli, dating his mom, and what are his motivations?). He and his best friend Hector become amateur sleuths in investigating their "prey". Using humor, pathos and compassion, Mona Simpson delivers a lucid tale of a boy dealing with a failing family and trying to mend it.

[Caren · Rating 2 out of 5]

I seldom write a poor review on Goodreads for the simple reason that I seldom finish a book I don't like. Halfway into this book, I nearly put it aside, and by the last page, I devoutly wished I had. This just isn't at all my sort of book. Here we have an incredibly nosy kid who rifles through his mother's underwear drawer (!) and calls her "the Mims". I found everything about this kid irritating. The many other characters were no more appealing. This was a dreary tale that held no uplifting qualities at all for me. My recommendation: Don't waste your time.

[Magdalena Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

"1 • Under the Bed
I was a snoop, but a peculiar kind. I only discovered what I most didn’t want to know.
The first time it happened, I was nine. I’d snaked underneath my parents’ bed when the room was empty to rig up a walkie- talkie. Then they strolled in and flopped down. So I was stuck. Under their bed. Until they got up.
I’d wanted to eavesdrop on her, not them. She decided my life. Just then, the moms were debating weeknight television. I needed, I believed I absolutely needed to understand Survivor. You had to, to talk to people at school. The moms yakked about it for hours in serious voices. The only thing I liked that my mother approved of that year was chess. And every other kid, every single other kid in fourth grade, owned a Game Boy. I thought maybe Charlie’s mom could talk sense into her. She listened to Charlie’s mom.
On top of the bed, my dad was saying that he didn’t think of her that way anymore either. What way? And why either? I could hardly breathe. The box spring made a gauzy opening to gray dust towers, in globular, fantastic formations. The sound of dribbling somewhere came in through open windows. My dad stood and locked the door from inside, shoving a chair up under the knob. Before, when he did that, I’d always been on the other side. Where I belonged. And it hurt not to move.
... "

[Victoria · Rating 1 out of 5]

Every year, there are only a handful of novels that I cannot bring myself to finish. This one, unfortunately, will join that small pile for 2014. The premise of a snooping child narrator is one that has worked so well for other authors (like Lisa O’Donnell’s Closed Doors), but the success really depends on the charm of the narrator. Miles displays little charm or humour and the odd structure adds to the difficulty in connecting with Miles or any of the other characters. The odd footnotes from “Hector” alludes to shifting facts and creates too much distrust in the narration. It almost feels like a series of inside jokes that the author is simply excluded from. And the choppy flow adds to this disconnect. There are too many dull details and too odd of an overall execution for me to feel anything other than relief to set this one aside. It just isn’t for me.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Mona Simpson's novel "My Hollywood," which captured a certain stratum of upper middle-class motherhood perfectly. (Mona Simpson is Steve Jobs' biological sister btw. He was raised by adoptive parents, she by their biological ones. I always think that's a cool fact.)

This book I wasn't so crazy about. The premise is awesome. The narrator is a young teen who spies on his parents and learns more than he bargains for about their personal life and then some.

But I didn't find that narrative voice authentic or engaging enough, nor did I find the windows into his parents' world compelling.

[Josh Ang · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mona Simpson had written in a teenager's voice before in "Anywhere But Here", where a girl grapples with a topsy turvy relationship with an irresponsible mother. But while that novel worked wonderfully, this latest bombed in more ways than one.

The premise is similar in "Casebook", though from a 14-year-old boy's point of view. Miles eavesdrops on his smartypants mathematician mother in an innocent enough attempt to find out what the verdict is re: his wish to watch "Survivor" on TV (um hmm, you heard right), and then discovers to his horror that his parents' marriage is falling apart. In his panic he enlists the help of his best friend Hector and they embark on a more serious spying mission, involving tapped phone lines. All well and good, except Miles doesn't sound like a teenager half the time, and this is a first person account. One may argue that the book is written on hindsight from an adult perspective, but the fact that Miles does sound like a typical teenager the other half of the time just doesn't add up.

And then there is the story. Miles's mom, affectionally called the Mims (though I couldn't find any explanation why she is called that, it just transited from "Mom" to "The Mims" within the first two pages), and the man, Eli, that comes into her life as well as Miles and his twin sisters'. While Miles is understandably conflicted in his feelings towards this new person in his mother's life, his obsession with finding out more about Eli and constant checking on his mom's emotional state just isn't convincingly played out. Simpson tries to embellish this pencil-thin plot with a multitude of characters like Hector's hot mom, Kat, who works for Charlie's mom, Sare, who in turn is a friend of the Mims's, and then there is Marge, who becomes involved with Philip, Hector's dad, but they don't all serve a clear purpose, except for Simpson to assemble a cast of thousands to pepper an otherwise dead narrative.

For much of the book, Miles discovers more and more disturbing facts, and that "Everyone had secrets; I understood now that I did. With that one revelation, the world multiplied." Well ok, but the story doesn't end (when it should) when something monumental is finally uncovered about two-thirds into the novel, with the help of an unbelievably goodnatured PI, Ben Orion who is supposed to look a little like Tom Cruise (a description that made me lose all faith in the author's literary prowess). Instead, Simpson chooses to drag it out and for about a hundred pages, Miles keeps revisiting what is uncovered, as if he is picking at an old scab, until even Orion admonishes him to stop it as the case is closed.

Out of this whole mess, Simpson complicates matters by trying to infuse the novel with a layer of metafiction by suggesting the story the reader is reading is a book in a book. There is a "Note to Customer" from some honcho of Neverland Comics to inform the reader that the version in the pages that follow may not be the final one, and also telltale footnotes throughout the novel with interjections by a presumably older Hector, which is supposed to make it all clear in the end, but by the time the revelation comes, the reader probably won't be very interested in it anymore.

[Liviania · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Miles Adler-Rich is a privileged child of divorce and a burgeoning snoop. He likes to listen to his mother's conversations on the phone. When she starts dating a man named Eli, Miles likes him at first. But as the years pass by, little things don't add up and Miles gets serious about uncovering the truth.

The parts of CASEBOOK I liked, I really liked, but it was an uneven read. The beginning and ending both go on for too long. I would admire the dedication to unraveling the consequences to Miles' actions if they weren't mostly mundane and boring. (Hint: It makes his mother sad.) I never found Miles' voice quite convincing either. He's privileged, yes, but he felt so naive to me for a fourteen-year-old boy. And it was just a touch off how he was so much more into his mom's life than his own.

There are many things I liked. I did enjoy Miles relationship with his mom, loving her and wanting the best for her. I liked his relationship with his best friend Hector, which ebbs and flows throughout the novel, sometimes strong enough to be mistaken for dating. It's a nice examination of the lengths friends will go to for each other and the underlying tensions that can exist in the best relationships. I like Miles' younger twin sisters, who are slowly revealed to have their own personalities and interests as their brother opens up to them. I liked the detective who helps the boys and chides their stupider impulses.

CASEBOOK, like many novels I've read lately, isn't well-served by it's blurb. The blurb promises the boys confronting the existence of evil, which makes CASEBOOK sound much darker than it is. It mostly deals with standard literary-fiction ennui, just through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old boy. There is one revelation of stunning evil that stands out in the fact that it is buried and never mentioned again and I wish it was left out because it was jarringly nasty and really didn't add anything to the story.

I think CASEBOOK will appeal to fans of stories about dysfunctional families. The characters are all wonderfully drawn, and there's some brilliant insights into the different ways people love each other and how they treat people they love. Don't, however, go in expecting a juicy mystery.

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chuck and I visited Portland recently and while browsing at Powell’s I saw Casebook, a new book by Mona Simpson. I try not to buy too many books in hardback; I can’t afford it, plus I don’t have the space for them. But there are some authors I must have immediately, and Mona Simpson is one of them.

Certain books, if you read them at the right time, make a tremendous impression. They not only strike a chord and reflect some inchoate feeling or experience you’ve never been able to articulate, but evoke something deeper and teach you about yourself. These books are works of genius, and I include in this category Mona Simpson’s Anywhere But Here and The Lost Father; if you have not discovered them, they’re worth seeking out. I’ll just leave this quote from The Lost Father to give you an idea of what you’d be reading if you pick up her books:

I might have been losing my mind in that car or I might have been learning the things I needed to know for my life, I couldn’t tell which, but hurtling in the straight line of that still landscape I feared as I always feared given wisdoms, could I keep them and hold them, or would they just streak the dark with their penmanship and fade before the word was through, like fireflies on a Wisconsin dusk, flickering, never captured, writing the story of the world but not on anything so stable as paper or stone but in time so that it was legible only through the decipherment of memory, which was always changing.

So there you go. She is a master; any new work of hers is cause for celebration.

Simpson’s writing is clear and precise, with a sense of suspense that draws you along a strong taut thread. Her novels are rooted in character, vivid with details of place. And often her prose takes flight, like a rush of adrenaline that sets your heart beating. Her books hold up love and loss like family heirlooms and let the reader gaze at them in awe. Casebook is no different; it is glittering puzzle, compelling and complex.

Here, Simpson revisits her theme of children troubled and betrayed by the parental figures in their lives. The book tells the story of a woman, a mother and mathematician, through the eyes of her son, Miles Adler-Hart. After a divorce that Miles, try as he might, cannot parse or deconstruct, a man named Eli Lee comes into his mother's life and generates joy and confusion for the whole family. Casebook is Miles’ reconstruction of that time.

I don’t generally like books narrated from a child’s perspective; it’s rarely done successfully and I find it artificial and coy. But Simpson tells a young boy’s story as narrated by his older self, in recollection, which allows her to present adult insights without coming off as stilted. Miles tells his sisters to “chillax” and resents having to toast his own bagel, but also has the sophistication to muse, “I wondered what correlation pain had with reality. All this had already been true a week ago, but she didn’t know and she had still been happy.” He is nosy, insightful, spoiled, and possessive of his mother, and he researches and documents her life with the assistance of his best friend, Hector, who maintains an envious crush on the Mims, as Miles calls her, and the home she creates.

There is an explicit connection to the stories of Sherlock Holmes; the mother’s name is actually Irene Adler, Holmes’s great woman character, and the two boys at the heart of the story provide a Holmesian pair, with the narrator playing the part of Watson and the brilliant Hector a stand-in for Sherlock.

Unfortunately, I did not think the ending was as perfect as the rest of the book; there’s a sense of distance when Miles recounts the final events. The ending allows Miles to stand back from his mother and try to accomplish what he’s been struggling to do all along: see her as a whole person. This act marries faithfully with one of the book’s great strengths, the powerful connection of love and respect Miles feels for his mother. However, I found the ending disappointing because it abandons the other great strength of the novel: the searing and hilarious, intrusive and quirky voice of Miles as direct witness. He is our Watson; he recounts and rescues the story, and gives us insight into the strange mystery of the responsibilities we have to the ones we love.

[Doreen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The narrator is Miles Adler-Hart who retrospectively tells the story of the divorce of his parents and his mother’s subsequent relationship with another man. Miles, from the age of nine, is an old-fashioned snoop; because of his eavesdropping he learns his parents are separating. Later, when his mother begins dating Eli Lee, Miles and his best friend Hector set out to investigate Eli because his broken promises and long absences make them suspicious.

The novel is framed as an unfinished manuscript written by Miles with footnotes added by Hector. The problem is that Hector’s annotations serve little purpose. They could have added insight into the accuracy of Miles’ memory, but don’t. In my ebook the footnotes appear at the end of the chapter so by the time I read them, they made no sense. Having to go back to find context for those notations is tiresome.

Miles as a narrator is problematic. At times he sounds like the young adult he is at the end of the book; at other times he seems much younger, the age he was when experiencing the events described. This blend of childish befuddlement and adult perceptiveness is not illuminating. The passage of time is not clearly indicated so the overall impression is one of disjointedness. Sometimes large spans of time are skipped over; at other times, mundane events are detailed. This choppy flow with its erratic jumps in time adds confusion, not enjoyment.

None of the characters is particularly appealing. Irene, Miles’ mother, is especially frustrating. She is a mathematician, intelligent and educated, but totally clueless in many ways. Why she falls for Eli and remains devoted to him for years despite his evasiveness and deceptions is beyond my comprehension. I can understand that a young boy may not understand the romantic relationships of adults, but even as an adult Miles offers little insight.

This is a coming-of-age novel and Miles does learn a little about the complexities of the adult world. In particular, he learns about the strange compromises made in the name of love. Certainly the lasting impact of divorce is emphasized. Perhaps because his parents are divorced, Miles concludes, “Love ruined people’s lives.”

From several descriptions I read, this book sounded really interesting. Unfortunately, it proved not to be so for me. I found I had to force myself to finish it.

Please check out my reader's blog (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).

[Natalie Serber · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I was a snoop, but a peculiar kind. I only discovered what I most didn't want to know."

That's the trouble with snooping, we poke around and eavesdrop so that we can know better the people we love and then we're gobsmacked by what we find. Such is the case for Miles Adler-Hart, the narrator of Mona Simpson's sixth novel, "Casebook."

Miles is a sweet teenager, a little soft in the belly, who spends his time hanging with chums, sewing mutant animal mash-ups (teddy bear head, horse body, alligator tail) from his twin sisters' stuffed toys, and spying on his parents. What starts off innocently enough, with Miles planting a walkie-talkie in his parent's bedroom in the hopes of overhearing what's happening on the reality TV show "Survivor" ends up with Miles dog paddling in the deep and incomprehensible waters of his parent's private lives.

As Miles witnesses his mother's heartbreak through her divorce and her confusing new relationship with shady Eli Lee, his spying techniques grow more elegant. He abandons treehouses and walkie-talkies for better technology, crawl spaces, and eventually a private investigator who helps him uncover startling revelations that threaten his family's well being. We, like Miles, piece things together through snippets of overheard conversations, keen observations and half-baked assumptions. It's a wonderfully dramatic vantage point for us readers, a fresh way to explore the ways families fall apart and come together.

"Since October, though, I'd woken at odd times in the night to her crying. I never told that I heard; a measure of her despair was the fear that she was failing us. I hadn't known that happiness was a requirement for parenthood. I didn't know how I would ever manage."

Try as we might, we parents cannot shield our children from our pain. Simpson, with her sharp eye and her deep interest in family life, knows this particular desire and failure, just as she knows how much our children want to understand, to help, and how their identities are formed in response to what they see.

Yet "Casebook" is far from a divorce soap opera, it's a detective story with a soupçon of upper middle class teen antics such as midnight bike rides, Miles' money making scheme selling cup-a-soup from his school locker, a detective comic strip he pens with his friend, Hector, in an attempt to demystify his parent's break up, and a hilarious revenge plan they cook up once the suspected bad guy is confirmed.

Simpson knows these characters and this upper middle class world of privilege well, from the one-upmanship of spring break vacation destinations and SAT scores to the housekeepers and the shabby chic interiors of the homes. Ingrained in this world is the earnest desire to do the right thing, know the crossing guard's name, make small bundt cakes for all the empoyees at the private school, volunteer at the animal shelter. Miles' mother, whom he calls the Mims, has a flea market chalkboard in her kitchen upon which she writes inspirational quotes like this one from Confucius, "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."

Where "Casebook" falters, and it is only a slight misstep, is in a half-baked attempt at a metafictional touch. In a "Note to Customer" preceding the first chapter, the novel is presented as a manuscript written by Miles, an exploration of his experiences. His friend Hector's random footnotes scattered throughout are too few to add much impact and ultimately distract from the work. While I think it was a great impulse to frame the novel with as a draft of a novel, I feel that the idea was exploited to its full potential

Overall, "Casebook" surprises us with its discoveries and offers up a sweet reminder that despite troubles and disappointments, confusion and heartbreak, life can be sweet. As Miles notes, "Hope for happiness is happiness."

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Mona Simpson's newest novel, Casebook opens, Miles is twelve years old when his parents separate. His mom, Irene (whom he calls the Mims) is a mathematician, not an occupation you find frequently in novels. His father Evan is a lawyer in the entertainment industry and they live in Los Angeles.

He has younger twin sisters whom he calls Boop One and Boop Two. His best friend Hector's parents aren't together either. Hector has a bit of a crush on the Mims, and he is more than willing to help Miles figure out why Mims and Evans are separated and whether they are headed towards divorce.

Miles has heard rumblings that Mims cheated on his dad, and to find out the truth he rigs up a phone extension so that he can listen to his mother's phone conversations. Mims soon begins dating Eli, who works for the National Service Foundation in Washington.

Eli seems like a good guy, but he is in the midst of a divorce from his wife and he misses his young son. His mother recently died, and he has a brother who has mental health issues. Eli promises Mims that he will move out to Los Angeles and they will be a family, she just has to give him time. And more time. And more time. And then he has to take care of his dying cat, who seems to hang on forever.

Miles and Hector become suspicious of Eli, so they seek out a private investigator, whose jobs usually consist of background checks on reality show contestants (Big Brother, The Bachelor), but there is something about these boys that gets to him, and he agrees to help them without pay.

Casebook puts me in mind of Caroline Leavitt's recent novel Is This Tomorrow?. They both tell the story of a lonely young boy, who loves his mom very much, and takes on her problems. They both tell the story from the boy as an adult looking back on his life. And they both feature strong characterizations and beautiful writing.

It took me awhile to get into Casebook, but about halfway in, I fell in love. Miles and Hector are such real, wonderful boys, trying to make sense of an adult world. Mims got to me too; she so wants this relationship with Eli to be the real deal.

Simpson creates believable characters that you feel you know. Her description of Sare, one of Mims's friends is a good example.
"She was way cooler than my parents. Sare was a very smart person who never tried anything too hard for her. She had that confidence and that boredom."

My only criticism of the book is that there are many characters, and at first it is difficult to keep track of who belonged to whom. And the fact that Miles had nicknames for his mom and sisters confused me when other characters called them by their given names.

Miles and Hector write a comic book based partly on Eli, and I'm glad we get to see the results of their work. Hector also has footnotes in the book, giving his point of view on things that Miles has written about him, which adds a unique perspective.

The ending is poignant, much like Is This Tomorrow?, and if you liked that novel, you will love Casebook, as I did. It's a beautiful coming-of-age story, sure to touch your heart.

[Carolee Wheeler · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read Simpson's Anywhere But Here five times. It was something I went to for comfort, clicking into the wisdom and resiliency of Ann August (even though, the first time i read the book, I became so incensed with her mother that I pitched the paperback across the room). I read her next two, The Lost Father and A Regular Guy and loved them as well. But My Hollywood disappointed and so did this one. I'm sorry, Mona Simpson, I just don't get you anymore.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starts off slow and a little strange, and somewhere along the way becomes a deeply moving tale told from the intimate perspective of a teenage boy. I found the events were sometimes hard to follow--the chronology unclear, pieces of the story left out; but by the last page, the patched-together feeling of the narrative made perfect sense, even if every moment of the narrative didn't.

[Steffy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? Will it improve upon the silence?"
That's the motto Miles' school goes by.

This was such a fun read! I was a little skeptic after skimming over the reviews and lots of people didn't seem to like it at all. I was surprised how often I had to laugh about the weirdness of Miles and Hector. Their relationship of best buddies was so great! Miles and Hector are snooping around his parents' life after their divorce and finding out things which confuse them even more and there is the new partner of his mom who seems suspicious to them. Just like teenagers are, they are curious and have questions. I've read people complaining about Miles being nosy and irritating but I think, Simpson depicted him just right. He lives in LA, is quite privileged, never had to worry about a thing cause is mom still made him bagels at age fourteen. He's a little odd, awkward and weird, and it was portrayed perfectly in a way, how a kid his age would pretend to be a detective who just wants to unterstand what is going on in his family and trying to make sense of the adult world.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was charming, and also disjointed in a way that kept pulling me out of my experience of reading it. For one thing, the narrator—Miles (who is nine at the beginning of the book and 20 or so at the end)—is sometimes pretty young and other times looking back at his experience from an older vantage point.

Although Simpson seems to want to tell the story from the point of view of an innocent child losing innocence and coming of age, during the last third of the book you want the story to move beyond repetition (definitely too much of this), beyond his preoccupation with his mother’s sadness, to some kind of resolution.

And then suddenly it does, and it’s like unstopping a bathtub. I did finally come to see that the narrator is stuck because of his own inability to sort out his “love” for his mother’s new boyfriend (this part is also expressed poignantly in the book)—and not just his love for his mother. So many losses in sunny California, described with the right mix of shock, hopefulness, dread, and acceptance.

Overall—very entertaining, quirky, sweet—and worth reading.

[Mandy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this pretty uninspiring and got bored well before the end. There’s nothing really “wrong” with it, except that it’s too long and nothing much happens. It’s a banal coming-of-age tale of Miles who snoops on his mother as he tries to work out just what is going on in his family as it falls apart at the seams. But I didn’t much care for Miles, or indeed any of the other characters so wasn’t invested in what happened to them. None of them are very convincing, and nor is Miles’ voice as the narrator, veering between too naïve and too knowing. Mona Simpson can do better than this.

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spoiler alert this book will make you have feelings. And often ones you would like to avoid! In retrospect, is this the book I should have read during this time? Who's to say! But it's a really lovely book about love and what love truly looks like. (but gosh, is it a lot of feelings)

[Erica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate how this book is written and it makes it difficult to read. It's all over the place and I have trouble caring about any of the characters. Going to abandon this one.

[Lori L (She Treads Softly) · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Casebook by Mona Simpson a young amateur sleuth hears more than he bargained for which eventually leads to an expanded investigation and results in some hard earned lessons and maturity. Highly Recommended

When Miles Adler-Hart was 12 he originally began eavesdropping on his parents in a vain attempt to discover any plans they might have for his futures. Instead of talking about him, Miles discovers that their relationship is in trouble and they are getting divorced. After the divorce Miles' mother, Irene, introduces him to her boyfriend, Eli. With the help of his friend, Hector, Miles increases his surveillance on his mom and this questionable new man. Miles and Hector eventually befriend a PI to help in their investigation.

Miles says of Eli: "It was odd story. Like the brother. A lot of Eli’s life seemed weird. Sad, too. I felt that even then. But sad in a way that had no poignancy. More like a disease I hoped wasn’t contagious."

Simpson follows her teenage protagonist Miles from age 12 to post high school, with most of the novel centered around Miles to about age 15. This novel manages to transcend the usual teenage novel full of angst associated with a broken family and the ensuing financial stress it causes by focusing on the mysterious relationship between Irene and Eli as seen through the eyes and ears of a sometimes clueless, sometimes insightful Miles and Hector. There is also a dose of humor in Miles story through some of his schemes and antics, along with the poignancy of an alienated teen during a tragic time in his life.

The novel is set up as an account after the fact, with a present day Miles and Hector as successful comic book authors, with footnotes added later with comments on what is written. This is a coming-of -age novel with a mystery entwined in the story. Simpson does a wonderful job capturing Miles thoughts for his age while allowing Irene's personal struggles to remain somewhat aloof and beyond Miles' ability to comprehend.

In many ways Simpson's account is a somewhat sanitized picture of what divorce means to many women and children. While there is definitely emotional strain, the devastating blow that many experience emotionally and financially isn't pictured quite as insidious here as the reality is for many.

The quality of Simpson's writing and her ability to really allow us to connect with her teenage protagonist help to elevate Casebook up from just-another-coming-of-age-story to a novel with a mystery to unravel while we gain insight into all of the characters.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Knopf Doubleday for review purposes.

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's taken quite a few attempts to read CASEBOOK, it's been one of the most picked up and discarded books in the review pile for quite a while.

The idea behind it was part of the problem – a young boy eavesdropping on his family as his parent's marriage falls apart. It feels therefore like it's going to be very personal. Devastating even. Unfortunately the storytelling relies heavily on the stream-of-conscious voice of young Miles – who frankly – doesn't feel “real”. Or maybe he just doesn't feel right – too voyeuristic. Odd. Creepy. Certainly tediously addicted to the sorts of injokes that some people like to use to keep others on the outside. It's not hard to get the hint you're not part of the cool group.

Which isn't a great way to be made to feel if you're reading something. It made every paragraph, every chapter, every page a drag. Constantly being reminded of not getting the joke, by a kid that was making your skin crawl a bit, and about people that frankly were considerably more dreary than anything else. I was bored. And annoyed. The more I got so obsessed with how bored and annoyed I was, I found I was reading just to make myself more and more convinced that I was right to be bored and annoyed. About half way through I found I couldn't even remember who most of the characters were, but I was still bored. And annoyed.

So I threw in the towel on CASEBOOK about three-quarters of the way through. Which is most unusual – normally I can find something. But in this case the voice didn't work, the characters weren't interesting, likeable, identifiable or understandable and their path to salvation was definitely not heading in my direction.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/revie...

[QOH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Casebook, to me, means a collection of butchered and baffling pieces of court cases in one volume, often without any context or annotation, which law students read (and sometimes, rarely, understand) and are then quizzed about by professors via the Socratic method. Generally, during the course of the questioning, the students realize they don't understand anything at all. (At least the first semester, and then they discover the wonderful world of study aids.)

Considering it's a novel narrated by an adult looking back at his teenage years (I think some reviewers missed that, in complaining about the switch between teenaged voice/adult voice in the narrator--this is a book that is meant to explain a prior successful comic that the narrator was a coauthor of as a young man, but that's made clear on the first page), "Casebook" made no sense as a title and I almost put it back down. But I was hooked from the first line (not an easy thing to do to me) and I sat for hours in an extremely uncomfortable chair while DESPERATELY having to pee, but not wanting to interrupt the story. I have a pinched nerve in my back and I'm going to have the lamest story ever to tell my physical therapist on Monday.

Casebook could be said to be a coming of age story, but while the narrator is a male in an expensive private school with a better looking best friend, that's not it at all. There is a mystery that drives the narrative, there is a little bit of the coming of age, but it's also a book about friendship, privilege, and trying to make sense of the shades of gray that exist in the adult world--specifically, the narrator's parents' divorce and his mother's subsequent romance. It's that coming together of the disparate pieces of life that makes Casebook an apt title.

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Initially, I wondered if a book that revolved around a youthful narrator who spied on his parents would culminate in an adult fiction storyline, but I couldn't have been happier with my decision to read Casebook. When I laughed out loud by the end of the first page, I knew I'd found a good book. The voice of teenage Miles capitalized on his naiveté, which added an element of humor I haven't experienced since The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, a book I absolutely loved and continue to talk about!

When Miles put a listening device in his parents' room, he learned more information that he bargained for once they decided to divorce. After adjusting to his father moving out and being left with his twin sisters, Boop One and Boop Two, Miles focused his efforts on vetting his mother's new boyfriend, Eli. When things with Eli didn't add up, Miles hired a private detective and uncovered a shocking secret that he didn't know how to deal with. His awkwardness was another point of comedy. Those encounters were the highlight of the book for me. I was less enthusiastic to read the last hundred pages where Miles' life revolved around being a high school student and having a girlfriend. The ending was also slightly depressing given the humor in the first half of the book. The author focused on the relationships among family members and showcased Miles' devotion through the selfless actions he did to benefit the Boops and his mom. This made him a likable character I enjoyed watching develop.

I liked the book, but wished there had been more of Miles' amusing observations and a happier ending.

[Stelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

This was an odd book. I like what the author was trying to do, but the actual execution came up short. Didn't help that the blurb about the book is very misleading.

I borrowed the ebook from my library. I had 14 days to finish the book. I was shocked but it took me all 14 to read this book. The first 30-40% of the book took 10 days and were excruciatingly hard to get through. I kept wanting to give up. But I powered through the boredom. And there was some payoff. Not enough to make up for the pain the first part inflicted, but still...

The story is supposed to be the childhood memoir of the main character, Miles. Apparently, he (and his friend Hector) became niche-ly successful and their fans are demanding more from them. This is their response - not a comic book (the basis of their previous success), but a sort of behind the scenes look to see how their inspiration started.

I think it's an interesting concept and I wish it had been pulled off better. The main character's tone isn't quite consistent and often doesn't feel like it matches up with his age, but that may be on purpose. I had to go back and read the "Note to the Customer" because I had no idea what that was originally and was incredibly confused. Way too many characters of no consequence and incidents of no consequence that slowed the book down. The blurb writer should really set better expectations because I think I would have enjoyed it much more if I'd gone into it with realistic ideas about the plot. Missed opportunity.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

My expectation at the outset was that this book would be more based in mystery than it really was.

In reality, this is more a story about a boy coming to grips with adulthood. In Miles, Simpson has created a charming and witty narrator whose story is quite amusing. The premise that this is a book he and Hector have written after the fact (complete with the occasional end note in conversation between the two) is amusing but perhaps not used enough to be thoroughly convincing. In other words it's an element the book could have lived without but had it been used more I think it would have made Casebook much improved (and given more of an opportunity to connect with Hector as a character as well).

All in all this was a book that just didn't completely draw me in in part because I kept waiting for the mystery to begin.

And yet, even had I been prepared for more of a coming-of-age story, Casebook would still have ended in disappointment for me. In spite of all the positive notes (great character development in Miles and those around him, hilarious boyish hijinks, and the wonderful way Simpson illustrates adult behavior through the eyes of a young boy) the ending fell completely flat.

There are many things to love about this book, especially if you aren't the apparently mystery manic person I am - seeing hints of intrigue around every corner - but I came THIS close to abandoning it multiple times before finally stumbling my way across the finish line. Meh.