Book Club - Val's review of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

 

Hello and welcome to our monthly book review.  I realised recently that I have a problem with books.  The problem is that I have too many, and not enough space to keep them all.  In fact, I have a huge stash that built up during my degree years when I read mostly what I had to read, and not what I'd choose to read.  So, I made a pact with myself: I'm not going to buy any new books until I've read and passed on a fair amount of the books currently in the 'waiting to be read' pile!  I hope that makes sense?  Anyway, the books I'll be reviewing will be mainly from this stash, consisting of many different genres, but all are titles or authors that have been recommended as 'good reads' by university lecturers, courses, fellow students and friends.

 

So here we go, and today I'm reviewing The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.  Categorised as a 'Young Adult' read, this book does cross over to the adult market, so is accessible to a wide audience.  It is the stream of consciousness narration of Christopher Boone, a young man with Asperger's syndrome, written by him as part of a school project.  A fantastic mathematician, he processes everything through pattern and logic, and his hero is Sherlock Holmes.  He finds it hard to relate to human emotion, but loves animals, saying at one point, 'dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk'.  How true!  When his neighbour's dog, Wellington, is suddenly found dead, Christopher assumes the role of Sherlock, setting out to discover, through logic, who committed the murder.  Through a series of ups and downs he unravels a complex plot centred around his own mother and father, which is a later cause for change in his own life.

There is plenty of humour in this book (which I always like), and although I lost interest a little in the second half, I read the last 60 pages in under an hour and cried after reading the last paragraph.  I thought it was a poignant, moving and succinct summary of Christopher, who we've got to know whilst travelling alongside him through experiences like the one at the train station.  A frightening and realistic episode, I connected with Haddon's simile of the approaching trains sounding like 'sword fighting'; that's exactly what they do sound like.  Overall, I thought this was a good read.  It was engaging, incredibly insightful and informative, and the characterisation was excellent, with Christopher a direct, vulnerable and realistic protagonist.  I could see the world from Christopher's perspective, and it was frightening.  It illustrated to me how much we take our own 'normality' (if there is such a thing!) for granted.  I would recommend this book and would read it again.  I've chosen to give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Have you read this book?  I'd be interested to know what you thought of it.  Feel free to leave comments below if you'd like to.  Dori will be here in a month's time for her book club review, but now I'm off to start reading the next book in the pile.  Bye for now.