Synopsis: Holden Harris is an autistic eighteen-year-old who is bullied at school. Laura Reynolds is the head cheerleader who befriends Holden but has problems of her own at home. In her trademark way, Kingsbury tackles real-life issues of high school bullying, autism, adultery, and ultimately ... acceptance. Specs: Adult fiction, Christian inspirational/autism, published October 2010, 304 pages.
Unlocked is a story about a teenage boy who developed autism when he was a toddler. Before that, he was a perfectly normal boy. Holden pretty much never communicated with anyone except with his cards with words and pictures on them. But since he met and befriended his childhood playmate Laura, he improved greatly, catapulted by listening to (and eventually singing in) the high school's rendition of Beauty and the Beast.
This newest Kingsbury novel is a harrowing and very true example of how kids with autism (and other disabilities) are treated in schools. Some teenagers don't know how to act around people who are different than they are, so they tease them and sometimes physically abuse them. This is what happened to Holden Harris.
Unlocked starts out depressing because Holden's mother is reminiscing about the days when Holden was normal, and autism hadn't nearly destroyed their family. But later in the book, Holden actually improves greatly through the medium of music. It's an inspirational and hopeful look into the disorder. And although that definitely doesn't happen with all kids with autism, it's important to have hope and to always keep trying to reach into their trapped minds.
I'm reluctant to rate Unlocked because it's about a heartbreaking (and incurable) disorder. But since that's what this blog is about, I'm rating this one on the author's storytelling abilities about autism, not on the subject matter alone.
