Outsiders Inside

This is a very loose theme tying together the books that stuck out to me in last Sunday's New York Times Book Review section:

For Children
Marcelo in the Real World - Francisco Stork; "is about Marcelo, a seventeen-year-old whom society has labeled as having a “developmental disorder” because of his pervasive interest in God and all things religious and because he does not relate to others as expected. When Marcelo is asked to spend a summer working in the mailroom of his father’s law firm, Marcelo encounters suffering, evil, and the joy and mystery of love."

Spoon - Amy Krouse Rosenthal/Scott Magoon; "Among her gifts is an ability to take what in other hands could have been a thin premise - a piglet who hates being messy, in the case of Little Oink; a young spoon who wishes he was a fork or a knife or chopsticks, and wring all kinds of sly, nifty variations out of it."

For Adults
Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri; "These eight splendid stories from the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Interpreter of Maladies concern immigrants from India and their American children. The children, masters of both Bengali and American cultures but at home in neither."

Love the One You're With - Emily Giffin; "A woman's happy marriage is shaken when she encounters an old boyfriend." Supposedly this author's chick lit is better than most.