The Curious but well deserved success (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: Adult Edition - Mark Haddon)

Member Name: NIKNAKy2k2

Product:	The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: Adult Edition - Mark Haddon
Date:	07/02/09 (119 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Raises awareness on Autism, very funny at times, original, brilliantly written

Disadvantages: Sad at times

The Curious incident of the dog in the night-time means a little bit more to me than just an ordinary book I would read and put down. I will explain why later but I will write down the plot of this must read book.
Christopher John Francis Boone is fifteen and has Aspergers syndrome, which is a form of Autism. He likes his own company and has special interests like playing minesweeper on his computer and Maths which he is doing an A level in. He likes to go outside at night and pretend he is the only person in the world. One day when he is out by himself at exactly seven minutes past mid-night he comes across a dog with a fork stuck through its body. It made Christopher feel sad so he sets out on finding who killed the dog thus the book being labelled as 'a murder mystery novel'. Of course, its much more than that and as the book carries on you find out much more about his life and its disastrous twist.

The Author Mark Haddon has worked with special needs children and his knowledge of how they behave is superbly evident in this book. He has written fifteen other books and has won numerous awards such as the BAFTAs. Christopher has to have everything exact and precise. When he tells the time he wouldn't just say half past, quarter to etc like we would. He would have the exact minute of the clock. When he gets put in prison his father arrived at the police station at 1:12am and did not see him until 1.28am. It's these little things that build up the character of Christopher. Other examples are that he cannot tell lies because it makes him feel sick and he hates being touched and the reason why he got taken to jail for a few hours was because he hit a policeman when the policeman touched him. If Christopher sees three red cars in a row in the morning it makes it a 'quite good day' if he sees four red cars it's a 'good day' and if he sees five red cars in a row it makes it a 'super good day'. However if he sees four yellow cars in a row it makes it a 'black day' which means it's a day when he talks to no one and eats by himself and takes no risks. This is because he hates the colours yellow and also brown and wont touch or eat anything that's yellow or brown. He won't eat food that's touching either and in the book it seems he always has baked beans broccoli and ham. Its because he likes routines and has his own routine everyday.
This book is very funny but also very sad. At the beginning he is made to believe that his mother is 'dead' because his father told him so but it's far from the truth but I wont say anymore because there are people who haven't read this book. Christopher's lack of knowledge of humans being can create some very funny situations. Like when one of his fathers friends 'Rhodri' who we assume knows how good at maths Christopher is asks Christopher a complete random sum
"What's 251 times 864" Christopher gives the right answer quite quickly as 216,864. However because of his problems he doesn't realise that most people aren't as good as maths as he is and asks rhodri "was I right?" which Rhodri answers "I haven't got a bloody clue" and then laughs. Christopher cannot see the funny side of it and doesn't like it when Rhodri laughs at him. When Christopher finds out from an elderly neighbour that the reason why father doesn't like Mr.Shears is because Mother and Mr.Shears used to be very, very good friends Christopher thinks for a while then suddenly says "You mean to say they were doing sex!". There are sad bits to the book like when he runs away which I am not going to say why as I don't want to give it away. But the fact that he has never gone further than the end of his road and his aspergers syndrome means he struggles with a lot of things like getting around and the noise of the underground tunnel. He covers up his ears and makes groaning sounds to block out the sound. When people offer him help he threatens them with his Swiss army knife fearing that he may be in danger from people who are only trying to help.

The book chapters are in prime numbers instead of cardinal numbers (1,2,3,4,5) which means that it starts with 2,3,5,7,11 and finishes at 233. He explains that its because he likes prime numbers. It's another reason why this book is very original. Also it goes from one chapter about what is happening then the next about his interests and then the next carries on what was happening. It carries on like this for the whole of the book. The book is narrated by Christopher and is very much like a personal dairy. When I first started reading it I thought I was a true story until I was told that it was made up. It shows just how believable and real life it is. I would know because I was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome a few years ago and can relate to some of the Christopher's problems and confusments he has in life. That is why I said at the beginning that this book meant more to me than any ordinary book. It was very brave of Mark Haddon the author to write something like this and has won many awards and hopefully has raised awareness of Aspergers Syndrome and Autistic Spectrum. I first read this book when my mum borrowed it of someone. I liked it so much I decided to get it myself. I got it for £3.73, which is a bargain for all the quality of the book. A must read for anyone.

Summary: Raises awareness on Autism, very funny at times, original, brilliantly written