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

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a novel by Mark Haddon. (Here's the Amazon.com link.) It is narrated by a fifteen year-old boy named Christopher who discovers that a neighbour's dog has been killed. Despite being innocent, he's initially suspected of the killing and decides to track down the real killer. The "catch" of the story is that Christopher is autistic. He is very gifted in math (or "maths", as it was called in the book -- I assume this is a Britishism) and can be very logical. But he can't stand to be touched, has little tolerance of crowds, strangers, or lack or predictability, and has his own little rules for life, such as avoiding things that are yellow.

At times, I found myself relating to Christopher and his way of thinking in the story. However, at other times I didn't, such as when he mentions that when shopping with his mother, there were too many people, so he laid down on the floor and started screaming. The jacket says that the author previously worked with autistic children, so I assume he knows what he's writing about.

While, on the surface, it's about an autistic boy tracking down the murderer of a dog, it is, of course, much deeper than that. It may sound corny, but it's more about what he discovers along the way, how it affects his relationship with his family, and how he reacts when his ordered life is turned upside down. There are also insights (through Christopher's eyes) on how his very ordinary parents dealt with a very special child, and the effects it had on them.

Also worth noting is that the author has experience as an illustrator, and there are lots of neat little illustrations in the book. These are not overwhelming and add to the effect of the story.

The book is shorter than much modern fiction at 226 not-very-dense pages. I view this as a good thing. To me, this is long enough to tell a good story. I'm busy and a slow reader. I'll try 600-page books, but they can become quite an effort for me. The length of this one seemed "just right". Still, it took me about 6 weeks to get through it -- I don't think I really got into the flow of the mostly short chapters. But another reason could be the fact that, since I've been getting up in the middle of the nights, I haven't been too eager to read much before bed every night.

When a friend suggested this book, I had high expectations for it, and I expected to love it. Maybe having high expectations can be a bad thing, as they left room for disappointment. I liked it, but didn't love it. If I liked it better, would I have read it quicker? Or was my schedule really maxed out? In any event, I'll still give it 4 stars out of 5.

How do you pronounce "Siobhan"?