Book Title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Author: Mark Haddon
Date Started: July 7th 2013
Date Completed: July 9th 2013
Genres: Mystery, Adventure
Rating: Five stars
Review:
I've been hearing recommendations of this book for literally years, but I've never got around to reading it until now. It wasn't what I was expecting, but it was infinitely better than I could have imagined.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is about fifteen-year-old Christopher. Christopher is autistic, and detests the colours yellow and brown, but likes dogs and the colour red. One night, Christopher finds his neighbour's dog killed with a garden fork and decides to investigate the crime. But his investigation spirals a little further than just the mystery of the dead dog, and soon Christopher's whole world is thrown into a turbulent and confusing muddle of stressful events.
The accuracy with which Haddon writes from Christopher's perspective is staggering. I haven't done as much background research on the author as I usually do, so I don't know what kind of research he did to get to the stage of actually writing his book, but the way with which he portrayed the boy's feelings and thoughts was so clear that it made the character so real to me.
I was extremely moved by the way he wrote Christopher's situation, especially at the parts where the character was in a place he didn't know or understand and the way his thoughts spiralled completely out of control. It was written on a level with which I was able to empathise, and I understood Christopher to the point where I actually cried because I knew how terrible and confusing and absolutely terrifying it must be for him.
Yes. This book is officially the fourth book to ever make me cry.
On top of that, just generally the writing flowed very well and even the intellectual excerpts and in-depth descriptions of maths problems and scientific theories were told in such a way that I actually kind of understood them - or at least appreciated them enough to understand why Christopher used them in the way he did.
The story was ingenious. It grew throughout the whole book, and it's quite a short novel. What begins as a murder mystery, turns into almost a coming-of-age story, and then to an adventure, and back to a mystery, and then a drama and it changes so much, so well that I couldn't class it under any one genre.
You could tell the plot had been carefully deliberated before it was written, since everything made sense when added together, and it all slipped into place so that when certain things were revealed, you took a moment to just marvel at the orchestration of the whole thing.
I didn't see a lot of the plot coming, as well. Some of it was a predictable, but nothing was obvious as you went through. You came to the point where you were so engrossed in the story and the feelings of the characters that you didn't even have time to think about what might be happening behind the words that Christopher is saying to us.
Christopher is one of my favourite protagonists. This is because he is so completely and utterly real to me. It helped having the story told through his eyes, so I knew what he went through - but just the completely naive innocence that he has all the time; and yet the absolute genius of his mind. I don't know much about autism, but I understand it a whole lot more now. (I honestly think that everyone should have to read this just to understand what some people have to go through as part of their everyday life, and how astonishingly exceptional they are because they manage to do it). He jumped off the page and moved me to tears when he was in harder times. I haven't connected with a character so much in a long, long time.
Christopher's dad is a brilliant character. I get the feeling that we're influenced to dislike him, after his sins have been revealed (spoilers), but I don't. I don't agree with what he did at all, but I understand why he did it, and I take that into consideration when judging his character overall. I think he was a brilliant part of the plot and it really outlined how these things can affect family life.
Siobhan I love. We never really properly meet her, but I love her, and I admire her, and I'm proud of a character that doesn't even exist because I know there are people like that in real life, and Siobhan is a perfect representative.
The other main female character (of which I will not name because spoilers) was also very good. I found myself disliking her more than Christopher's father, which I don't think was the intention, but I did. Again, I understand why she did certain things, but I feel she had more choice in the matter.
The pace was complete throughout. There may not have been action scenes to create climaxes like most of the books I read, but there were still very clear climaxes that really caught the reader's attention. I also think that even the down-time parts of the book were interesting and didn't discourage me from reading.
I found I read this book mainly in one day, in one chunk of around two hundred pages, with a little bit on either end. It's quite easy reading, but even so, I wouldn't have been able to do that if the pace had been too slow, or if the plot was a bit lacking or anything like that.
I would recommend this book to everyone. I honestly believe everyone should read it, because it opened my eyes - and I like to think of myself as a fairly aware person. It's also a brilliant piece of writing, with mystery, drama, facts and everything in there. I can't really describe how amazed I am at this book. But it made me cry. And considering only four books have ever made me do that, that counts for a lot.
Image Source: http://media.onsugar.com/files/ons1/303/3032039/16_2009/75/0099450259.jpg
I've been hearing recommendations of this book for literally years, but I've never got around to reading it until now. It wasn't what I was expecting, but it was infinitely better than I could have imagined.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is about fifteen-year-old Christopher. Christopher is autistic, and detests the colours yellow and brown, but likes dogs and the colour red. One night, Christopher finds his neighbour's dog killed with a garden fork and decides to investigate the crime. But his investigation spirals a little further than just the mystery of the dead dog, and soon Christopher's whole world is thrown into a turbulent and confusing muddle of stressful events.
The accuracy with which Haddon writes from Christopher's perspective is staggering. I haven't done as much background research on the author as I usually do, so I don't know what kind of research he did to get to the stage of actually writing his book, but the way with which he portrayed the boy's feelings and thoughts was so clear that it made the character so real to me.
I was extremely moved by the way he wrote Christopher's situation, especially at the parts where the character was in a place he didn't know or understand and the way his thoughts spiralled completely out of control. It was written on a level with which I was able to empathise, and I understood Christopher to the point where I actually cried because I knew how terrible and confusing and absolutely terrifying it must be for him.
Yes. This book is officially the fourth book to ever make me cry.
On top of that, just generally the writing flowed very well and even the intellectual excerpts and in-depth descriptions of maths problems and scientific theories were told in such a way that I actually kind of understood them - or at least appreciated them enough to understand why Christopher used them in the way he did.
The story was ingenious. It grew throughout the whole book, and it's quite a short novel. What begins as a murder mystery, turns into almost a coming-of-age story, and then to an adventure, and back to a mystery, and then a drama and it changes so much, so well that I couldn't class it under any one genre.
You could tell the plot had been carefully deliberated before it was written, since everything made sense when added together, and it all slipped into place so that when certain things were revealed, you took a moment to just marvel at the orchestration of the whole thing.
I didn't see a lot of the plot coming, as well. Some of it was a predictable, but nothing was obvious as you went through. You came to the point where you were so engrossed in the story and the feelings of the characters that you didn't even have time to think about what might be happening behind the words that Christopher is saying to us.
Christopher is one of my favourite protagonists. This is because he is so completely and utterly real to me. It helped having the story told through his eyes, so I knew what he went through - but just the completely naive innocence that he has all the time; and yet the absolute genius of his mind. I don't know much about autism, but I understand it a whole lot more now. (I honestly think that everyone should have to read this just to understand what some people have to go through as part of their everyday life, and how astonishingly exceptional they are because they manage to do it). He jumped off the page and moved me to tears when he was in harder times. I haven't connected with a character so much in a long, long time.
Christopher's dad is a brilliant character. I get the feeling that we're influenced to dislike him, after his sins have been revealed (spoilers), but I don't. I don't agree with what he did at all, but I understand why he did it, and I take that into consideration when judging his character overall. I think he was a brilliant part of the plot and it really outlined how these things can affect family life.
Siobhan I love. We never really properly meet her, but I love her, and I admire her, and I'm proud of a character that doesn't even exist because I know there are people like that in real life, and Siobhan is a perfect representative.
The other main female character (of which I will not name because spoilers) was also very good. I found myself disliking her more than Christopher's father, which I don't think was the intention, but I did. Again, I understand why she did certain things, but I feel she had more choice in the matter.
The pace was complete throughout. There may not have been action scenes to create climaxes like most of the books I read, but there were still very clear climaxes that really caught the reader's attention. I also think that even the down-time parts of the book were interesting and didn't discourage me from reading.
I found I read this book mainly in one day, in one chunk of around two hundred pages, with a little bit on either end. It's quite easy reading, but even so, I wouldn't have been able to do that if the pace had been too slow, or if the plot was a bit lacking or anything like that.
I would recommend this book to everyone. I honestly believe everyone should read it, because it opened my eyes - and I like to think of myself as a fairly aware person. It's also a brilliant piece of writing, with mystery, drama, facts and everything in there. I can't really describe how amazed I am at this book. But it made me cry. And considering only four books have ever made me do that, that counts for a lot.
Image Source: http://media.onsugar.com/files/ons1/303/3032039/16_2009/75/0099450259.jpg
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