Tuesday 2 June 2015

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - book review

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, by Mark Haddon


This book is brilliant in so many ways. 

The main character, Christopher, has Asperger's and after finding his neighbours dog dead he sets out on a mission to discover who murdered Wellington, the dog. The story encompasses issues such as family conflict, as well as obviously mental illnesses, namely Autism. 


The story is told from Christopher's perspective, allowing the reader to really experience how he thinks. For example, when he travels on a train, I really felt as if I understood why he was so anxious, but at the same time not fully getting it. 

Asperger's is a type of autism, where the individual often struggles with social interaction and communication, but often has intense interests or talents, such as Christopher's amazing maths ability. It is caused by a lack of cognitive (brain) development, but usually improves into adulthood. 

I really enjoyed that is was written from his point of view, as I said, and also the images and diagrams that were scattered throughout made it easy reading and separated the text out. I thought that even the small details like the chapters only being prime numbers and Christopher's little explanations that sort of diverted from the story but still allowed you to be with him, they added to the effect and show just how much thought was put into the book. 

This book offers a subtle yet engaging insight into autism, whilst being entertaining and so cleverly written. Personally, although none of my close family or friends are autistic, I found this book so insightful and interesting, and was able to relate Christopher's behaviour to people I know with autism. 

I would most definitely recommend this to others (I already have!), as I think it would suit so many different reading interests and what people look for and want to get out of a book. 



There is a stage adaption that has recently been advertised unfortunately I have not seen it, but I would love to as it looks incredible...maybe soon! 





Keep Smiling! :-) 

2 comments:

  1. I've read this book a few years ago and remember it being quite well written, although there were moments, that just didn't seem right for me. Specifically, there were some episodes where the main character took out his pocket knife (I don't remember the details, but I think he wanted to either protect himself, or attack someone, or both). I couldn't understand, why would he even have that pocket knife. It just seemed unsafe and unreasonable, that an adult would give that kid a knife. At least this is what I remember from the story, that didn't quite click with me. Although the episode, where we find out, who was the actual culprit, was really strong.
    I think, I might even re-read this. Maybe I'll see some new aspects to this story. =)

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    1. Yeah, I felt that too! Like I understood that he saw others as a much bigger threat than most people would, but a 15 year old carrying a pen knife everywhere just felt a tad too extreme, but maybe it was to show how vulnerable some people with Asperger's feel, and also how misunderstood they can be? I don't know, but I felt the same as you!

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