Nathaniel Clark is a fourteen-year-old with Asperger Syndrome. Some people call him a genius, but Nathaniel has read that a true genius is someone who uses his talent to make a contribution to the world. Nathaniel is determined to live up to his label, and begins his quest to do something important.
Mindblind contains examples of:
- Dedication: "To Gregory, a wonderful, supportive husband and father."
- Dumb Struck: Nathaniel's dad forces him to go to a Wild Teen Party, where he drinks punch that turns out to be spiked with vodka. The vodka interacts badly with his medications, rendering him almost catatonic for days. Eventually he recovers enough to communicate by typing on his computer, but it's another few days before he can talk well.
- First Kiss: Jessa's parents have banned her from dating until she's sixteen, but they haven't specifically banned her from kissing. She and Nathaniel share a few brief kisses when they make up after their misunderstanding.
- Food Fight: Cooper throws a marshmallow peep at Nathaniel, which turns into a food fight. All kinds of food are thrown except Emily Erin's cookies, which are too good to ruin.
- Held Back in School: Nathaniel is surprised to learn that Logan is still in middle school despite being fourteen, like the others.
- Homeschooled Kids: Nathaniel attended one day of preschool, but failed to fit in so badly that he's been homeschooled ever since.
- Idiot Savant: Nathaniel, as well as his friend Molly, a horse-obsessed girl whose detailed drawings of horses have been praised by TIME magazine.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: When Nathaniel is ambushed by Jessa and Logan, when his last interaction with them involved drunkenly insulting Jessa and vomiting, he says, "I need to get a drink of water or other reasonable action" and then bolts for the bathroom.
- Like Father, Unlike Son: Nathaniel's parents split up when he was eight, and he dreads his weekend visits with his father, a successful motivational speaker and "people person" who loves sports and trucks. His father has much more in common with Nathaniel's half-brother Joshua, an outgoing toddler.
- Male Band, Female Singer: Nathaniel's band consists of himself on keyboards, Logan Finley on drums, Cooper Owens on guitar, and Jessa Rose on lead vocals.
- Narrative Profanity Filter: Nathaniel replaces swear words in other people's dialogue with "(R-rated word)."
- Not What It Looks Like: Nathaniel wants to date Jessa, but Jessa has told him that her parents won't let her date until she's sixteen. At the party, Nathaniel sees her with a boy, assumes she lied to him, and freezes her out for several days. He realizes too late that the boy was actually her cousin Sam, whom Nathaniel hadn't seen in years.
- Own Goal: During Nathaniel's short-lived attempt at soccer when he was seven, he kept running in the wrong direction no matter how many times his father tried to explain where the goal was.
- Parent with New Paramour: Nathaniel's stepmom Rachel. Nathaniel doesn't love her, but she's at least nice to him, which is more than his dad can say.
- Photographic Memory: Nathaniel remembers everything that's ever happened to him since he was one. He often gets caught up in a memory and spaces out, which causes some people to think he's having a seizure.
- Signature Scent:
- Molly wears her leather riding boots everywhere, including to riding lessons, so she always smells like manure.
- Three-year-old Joshua smells like a mixture of Mr. Bubble, mint toothpaste, and chocolate.
- Jessa smells like citrus.
- Tantrum Throwing: During a meltdown, Nathaniel throws a Rubik's cube at his closet door, doing minor damage to the door and major damage to the cube. His rage disappears as he's crawling around picking up pieces of the cube.
- Teen Genius: Nathaniel graduated high school at eleven and is now a college graduate with a major in computer science and minors in Mandarin Chinese and mathematics.
- Textual Celebrity Resemblance: A girl at a party says that Nathaniel looks like a cross between Lucas Till and Alex Pettyfer.
- [Verb] This!: Nathaniel's mom says, "Was that a sense of humor I just glimpsed?" Nathaniel starts talking about how she can't "glimpse" something auditory. His mom says, "Glimpse this!" and tosses a bag of potato chips at him.
- Word, Schmord!: Nathaniel says, "I don't think I am cut out to be a rock star." Jessa says, "Rock star, schmock star." Nathaniel asks what a schmock star is, and Jessa explains that you can replace the beginning of a word with "schm," which Nathaniel finds confusing but funny. Later, when his mom asks if there's something going on between him and Jessa, he says, "Something, schmomething."
- Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Nathaniel's dad thinks Asperger's is just an excuse to act like a brat and is constantly trying to force him to act more normal.
