Mark Haddon's novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, is a must-read for anyone who enjoys a good, old-fashioned mystery with a lot of humor and heart. Fans of books like Encyclopedia Brown and even Flowers for Algernon will find this novel is definitely up their alley.
The novel's main character, Christopher Boone, is a super-smart kid with a disability that is never actually named in the book, but is very similar to Asperger's Syndrome. He only likes certain colors, has a photographic memory, and is incredibly good with math. Because of and in spite of all this, Christopher has a mission: to find out who killed his neighbor's dog with a pitchfork. To do this Christopher has to start his very own detective book.
While Christopher is chasing down leads, his father finds out about his "shenanigans" and takes Christopher's book away, telling him he is not to investigate the murder any further. Because Christopher's mother died two years ago--according to his father--he is forced to listen. But, here's the thing, Christopher's father has his own personal motives, and something inside of Christopher senses that. So, he sets out to find his detective book, and what happens next is truly incredible...
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is a novel with more twists and turns than even Christopher is comfortable with. Haddon used to work with disabled adolescents, and does Christopher and all those with a disability a great justice with this novel. He reveals to us--the readers--what it's like to be inside the mind of a terribly smart kid who just happens to be a little socially awkward and unaware of societal norms. He gives people like Christopher a voice and shows everyone who took the time to read his wonderful novel that "disabled" doesn't mean unable.
I had so much fun reading this novel. Even now, four years later, Christopher still feels like a real person to me. This is an extraordinary feat by Haddon. I can't imagine the amount of heart that had to go into the writing of this book; it's so uncommonly genuine! Also, to those of you who are theater fans, the novel was turned into a play recently, and it's lead actor won a Tony for his portrayal of Christopher Boone. I wish I could give you all a better summary than I have, but there are so many spoilers after a certain point, that I would feel like I was depriving you of the joyous experience of reading Haddon's novel.
So, I'll leave it at this. I can't imagine a better mystery novel that also breaks down what it means to be disabled. You can tell how much Haddon enjoyed writing this novel just by reading the very first page. For these reasons, I have to give The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time 5/5 stars.
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