Emily's Reviews > The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie

I adored this book. Adored it.

The children's librarian at my library has been recommending this for months, and it finally floated to the top of my to-read pile.

Bindy Mackenzie, the narrator, is a teenage genius with a decided lack of skill in social interaction. She constantly types on her laptop: transcripts of conversations of the people around her, philosophical musings, and a general record of what's going on in her life. She sends a lot of memos. She has personalized stationery, and for a small fee, she'd be happy to design some for you. Bindy watches people but is often puzzled or frustrated by their actions. Bindy judges and holds grudges. Bindy wishes for friends. She is in turn obnoxious, hilarious, shocking, infuriating and lovable. As a reader, I just wanted everything to turn out OK for her.

The format of this book took some getting used to—it's Bindy's transcripts, philosophical musings and memos for a large chunk of the book, until later she is on the receiving end of the memos. It feels disjointed at first, but as I continued reading, the story pieced itself together into both a compelling mystery and a touching, often laugh-out-loud funny story of friendship and growing up.

Highly recommended. I know it's listed as the 3rd in a series, but it worked fine as a stand-alone novel. I will definitely be picking up the others.