The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was recommended to me by my boyfriend to read a long time ago. I finally made time to read it this year and am glad that I did!
This is the story about a boy named Christopher who has autism. It is told from his perspective, like he’s writing the story himself. It’s got an almost journal like feeling at times when he goes into detail explaining something but other times feels like a regular novel. At the very beginning of the book it’s immediately clear that this was going to be a different type of read just looking at the chapter numbers. The whole book is laid out very interestingly with diagrams, drawings, foot notes, equations, and other things that are not typical to see in a standard novel. He wants to solve the mystery of the dog he finds and through his investigation, and conversations with his neighbors, it becomes clear to the reader that there’s a lot going on that he doesn’t understand. It’s a peek into the mind of someone, and it’s uniquely interesting.
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The world building is good. Christopher pays attention to all the details around him so knowing where we are isn’t difficult at any time in the book. I’ve never been to England but with how the neighborhood, his garden, different towns, and other areas were described it wasn’t difficult to put myself in the setting. It felt almost too detailed at points, like I wasn’t sure why some detail would be important, but as I read I began to understand that it was how he noticed things – whether they were deemed important or not. This book was a great way to build and keep building a world for the story.
World: 5
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Christopher is the main character and he states early on that he doesn’t understand most people. While we don’t get a clear understanding of the other characters in the book we do get to know Christopher very well. His unique way of thinking and seeing the world is the main driving force of the story. The only real character building we get outside of Christopher is through him conversing with other people. That being said, there’s really only one character that has any major character development and it’s not Christopher, while he learns and grows a little he is just the way he is for the majority of the story. His father grows and changes a lot during the course of the book, it is kind of forced upon him, but it makes him seem the most dynamic as he changes through Christopher’s eyes.
Characters: 4
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Relationships are an interesting factor of this story. Of course there’s family for Christopher like with his father, and leadership with his teachers but other than that there’s not much, he has a hard time understanding people so doesn’t seem to really have friends. That seems to be the extent of it except, there’s this secondary underlying relationship theme revolving around romantic relationships and the such, it’s something that the reader only seems to understand and makes for an interesting read while you wait to find out if Christopher will understand it or not.
Relationships: 4
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Emotions are almost non existant. As is to be expected really. I never really felt strong emotions in a way that would positively affect me, I was annoyed a lot by the writing when he’d go off on a tangent or seem to blatantly not notice something I did. I think though that it was intentional. For him, having autism, is a very frustrating thing and that is shown a lot throughout the story as he tries to deal with the things that are going on around him.
Emotions: 4
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The pace of the story was the hardest part for me. There weren’t any big time skips or anything. The tangents to describe something or to tell a story unrelated to the main story were sometimes difficult for me to get through and made the story drag on while I waited for him to get back to the main story. I know that it’s part of the uniqueness and the point of the book, but it was still hard for me at times to keep reading through.
Pace: 3
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Overall, I give it 4 out of 5 stars. It was a unique way of looking at a seemingly unimportant event, but once you dive in the story gets pretty deep. It wasn’t perfect but I’d recommend this read to anyone really.
Ttyl,
Squared
Squared's Book Reviews 