Things Not Seen, by Andrew Clements, is about a teenage boy named Billy who wakes up invisible. The scary thing is that nobody has a clue on how this happened. He spends the next few months avoiding being taken by the government while his parents are being questioned about a reported missing boy. He meets a blind girl, named Alicia, which is pretty convenient since nobody can see him anyways. He learns about her disability and she learns about his and they ultimately save each other from loneliness.
  The themes one would find in this book would be that coping with a disability is tough, being lonely hurts, and enjoy your life before it is taken from you. Billy has to learn a whole new way of life and he has a very hard time with it. He cannot see his hands, feet, or any other part of himself. Billy wastes his time walking around Chicago naked in mid-winter, since wearing clothes would only get him caught. While being invisible, Billy has nobody to talk to besides his parents which would be hard for anyone. For weeks, he has absolutely no interaction with another human being. When he meets Alicia he forgets how to talk without sounding like a complete creep, which leads to a very awkward encounter. Billy eventually realizes how great life was when he could experience it with everyone around him. He misses school, he misses his friends, and he misses the way that things used to be, except there is visibly no return.
Things Not Seen demonstrates different multicultural elements than what the average reader would be used to. It shows a different side of blindness and disability that not many people are aware of and the challenges other than not being able to see. I enjoyed the book because it has great pace and it’s always keeping me on my toes. Things Not Seen is full of surprises and is unlike any other book I’ve ever read. I would recommend it to all teens and preteens because it gave me a whole new perspective on disabilities. For those who feel lonely often, this book would also be a great read because you could completely relate to Billy.