Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.
This improbable story of Christopher’s quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.
This is a story about the weirdness of the world as understood by Christopher John Francis Boone, a boy with autism who lives with his father in a small town in the UK. Christopher and his idiosyncrasies are instantly lovable. Through the eyes of a boy who thinks of everyone as different from himself, we’re reminded just how many common threads bind us all together.
Review of 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Despite a serious amount of visual information which of course I miss, I managed to enjoy this book tremendously. I think the appeal for me is the very logical way in which Christopher approaches the world, it doesn't feel as if you're being told about disability, rather that you are perceiving the world in a way this young man lives it, in a direction so different from that our collective consciousness expects us to face. It's not a long read but it's seriously worth more thought per page than many books I've found.
Review of 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
[guessing at the star rating / mining my old FB notes now that they are almost impossible to find]
i should have liked this more; it's an unfortunate case of bad timing. you see, i read Born on a Blue Day, an actual memoir of an autistic person, 2 or 3 years ago so this fictionalized version didn't seem quite as original and interesting as it would have if i'd read these 2 books in reverse.
that said, it was enjoyable enough. i liked the connections the author made with sherlock holmes, and the presence of red herrings in his stories. it's renewed my drive/desire to push this series on fierce :)
on a side note, my neighbor's pre-teen noticed me reading the book and announced she'd read it last year and liked it and that made the curious about the choice to make this an adult fiction, as opposed …
[guessing at the star rating / mining my old FB notes now that they are almost impossible to find]
i should have liked this more; it's an unfortunate case of bad timing. you see, i read Born on a Blue Day, an actual memoir of an autistic person, 2 or 3 years ago so this fictionalized version didn't seem quite as original and interesting as it would have if i'd read these 2 books in reverse.
that said, it was enjoyable enough. i liked the connections the author made with sherlock holmes, and the presence of red herrings in his stories. it's renewed my drive/desire to push this series on fierce :)
on a side note, my neighbor's pre-teen noticed me reading the book and announced she'd read it last year and liked it and that made the curious about the choice to make this an adult fiction, as opposed to a young adult one. the content was appropriate enough, and might even have been accessible to the junior fiction crowd. i doubt a teen / pre-teen would pick up a thick memoir, but a short novel could do a great job as far as empathy goes.
