Shelly's Book Blog

Things Hoped For, by Andrew Clements, is a sequel to Things Not Seen, which I read a few years back and really liked. In Things Not Seen, Robert wakes up one morning and realizes that he is totally invisible. Clements explores the fantasy of invisibility thoroughly, really delving into detail in answering the question most people have asked at some time in their lives: what would it really be like to be invisible?

Things Hoped For focuses on a new character, Gwen, who plays the violin and is living in New York City with her grandfather while she prepares for auditions to Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music. She meets Robert (of Things Not Seen) in a coffee shop one day and they realize that they met each other at the Tanglewood music festival the previous summer. Eventually, Gwen and Robert share important secrets with each other: she that her grandfather has disappeared, and he that he was once invisible. I enjoyed the adventure these two characters shared, and my only complaint is that the book was rather short (167 pages). The story continues, though, with Robert's girlfriend's story in the next book, Things That Are.