[The Boy Who Could Make Himself Disappear is an] unusual and disturbing novel which is apt to be controversial because of its theme and the way in which that theme is developed. The central character is seventh-grader Roger Baxter, handicapped by a severe speech impediment which resulted from a childhood accident and has been compounded by emotional problems with his parents, who have just been divorced and are both indifferent to the boy's welfare…. The novel ends on a faintly hopeful note when Roger, now in a mental hospital, makes tentative contact with someone who wants to help him. The reading is not easy; the author uses many flashbacks, and some passages verge on stream-of-consciousness. Nor is the book without flaws—Roger's mother, for example, seems at times unbelievably heartless. But in its painful honesty, this, like the YA favorite, [Hannah Green's] I Never Promised You a Rose...