Match BookThe Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism
Naoki Higashida
2005 · 135 pages · Memoir
How it reads
The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism is memoir (autism memoir, specifically), and its dominant mood is hopeful. Whatever it puts its people through, it believes things can get better. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.
It's set in an international setting, in the recent past, told in the first person by a single narrator. Its central concerns are identity, family and coming of age. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.
It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 135 pages it's a single-sitting book. It's a mega-bestseller — the book everyone seems to have read.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something hopeful
- you want something to chew on
- you want a complete story in one book
Maybe not if…
- you need something melancholy or dark
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- memoir
- Author gender
- male
- Author experience
- debut
- Setting: place
- international
- Setting: time
- recent past
- Mood / feeling
- hopeful
- Pace
- moderate
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- short
- Narrative style
- first person, one narrator
- Publication era
- modern classic
- Popularity
- mega-bestseller
- Series vs standalone
- standalone
- Themes
- identity, family, coming of age
- Ending style
- resolved and happy
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
- Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too MovementTarana BurkeShares: memoir, hopeful mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
I'm Glad My Mom DiedJennette McCurdyShares: memoir, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace, resolved and happy ending- This Is My BodyLindsay King-MillerShares: memoir, hopeful mood, moderate pace, resolved and happy ending
- Persepolis: The Story of a ChildhoodMarjane SatrapiShares: memoir, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace, identity as a theme
- My Life In Hidey Hole Hollow: And Other Tales Of My LifeShari VaudoShares: memoir, moderate pace, resolved and happy ending, recent past setting
- Uncultured: A MemoirDaniella Mestyanek YoungShares: memoir, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace, resolved and happy ending
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