Goldfish Boy

by Lisa Thompson

[Leah]

The Goldfish Boy is one of the most important middle grade novels I’ve ever read (I haven’t read many, but you know what I mean). 12-year-old Matty has obsessive-compulsive disorder and can’t leave his house, for fear of getting sick. So he observes his neighbours through the windows of his house. Which comes in particularly handy, when toddler Teddy goes missing from his next door neighbour’s garden. Who would do that? Why would someone kidnap a toddler? Matty is determined to find out, even if it means having to leave the house a time or two.

I will always say that I have no idea what it’s like to suffer from anxiety, I’m lucky to have never suffered from it so every book that I read that deals with anxiety further helps me understand the condition, and Matty’s condition was heart-breaking. Mostly because of what happened to Callum, Matty’s brother. It really made everything clear to me, and it just made me want to help Matthew in some way. I don’t know how real Matty’s condition was portrayed, but it seemed real enough to me and I was massively effected, for Matty and for his parents. Look, having anxiety is hard, absolutely; but it must also be hard for the parents of kids with anxiety, because you just want them to be better, because anxiety is hard to understand if you’ve never suffered. It’s hard to not just drag the person outside or to school and I saw where Matty’s parents were coming from, their behaviour wasn’t ever cruel, just misunderstood.

The mystery part of the book was so intriguing. Usually when I read a mystery book, it goes all in – with gory details and police interrogating suspects, etc, but in a middle grade book you can’t really do all of that, but I still managed to feel the tension, and (unlike in most mystery books where the kidnapper is glaringly, annoyingly obvious), I had no idea who took Teddy. Actually, that’s a lie because I suspected an inside job. That was about as far as I got, with my thinking, otherwise I was none the wiser – and happy for it, because I like to be surprised, I like not knowing.

I really enjoyed The Goldfish Boy, the mystery was well written, Matty was a fantastic character, and being able to learn more about his neighbours, including young Melody who needs her own story, please?!?!?, to try and figure out who had taken Teddy made for some interesting reading. My only gripe? That the horrid PE teacher didn’t get some sort of comeuppance, for making two boys call themselves losers, in school, during a lesson. THAT IS NOT OKAY. I felt for his unborn kid, I tell you. Apart from that, this was an incredibly sensitive read. I’ve learnt so much these past six months about anxiety, and Matty’s was hard to read, but important to read. I didn’t know it could manifest so young, and it really was heart-breaking at times, but this was, overall, an incredible, thought-provoking read.