I'll be honest; if you ever see this book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon, turn and walk the other way. Honestly, this book stinks.
The story is about a boy (and narrated through the boy) with a mental condition who loves math and is good at it. He lives with his father, and they live in the UK ( England area) and his mother is supposedly dead. Christopher, the boy, sees his neighbor's (a woman) dead dog and goes to investigate and tries to find out who killed the dog. When looking for clues, Christopher discovers a bunch of letters sent to him by his mother after her date of death. When his father finds out, he confesses that his mother (Judy) is not dead and that he killed the dog because he was arguing with the neighbor. Scared that his father will kill him too, Christopher runs away from home and boards the subway train to live with his mother at the address on the letters. His mother is with the neighbor’s husband. His mother takes care of and wants to live with Christopher but the husband doesn’t, and so they break apart and live in different areas. At the end, his father promises to rebuild Christopher’s trust and Christopher gets to take his math tests (A-level) and he thinks he can do anything.
The story is about a boy (and narrated through the boy) with a mental condition who loves math and is good at it. He lives with his father, and they live in the UK ( England area) and his mother is supposedly dead. Christopher, the boy, sees his neighbor's (a woman) dead dog and goes to investigate and tries to find out who killed the dog. When looking for clues, Christopher discovers a bunch of letters sent to him by his mother after her date of death. When his father finds out, he confesses that his mother (Judy) is not dead and that he killed the dog because he was arguing with the neighbor. Scared that his father will kill him too, Christopher runs away from home and boards the subway train to live with his mother at the address on the letters. His mother is with the neighbor’s husband. His mother takes care of and wants to live with Christopher but the husband doesn’t, and so they break apart and live in different areas. At the end, his father promises to rebuild Christopher’s trust and Christopher gets to take his math tests (A-level) and he thinks he can do anything.
- It has a good plot up to the point where we find out his father killed the dog. It’s a good mystery plot, but the rest of it is stupid and lacks forward movement.
The Bad:
- Since the book is in Christopher’s point of view and because he has a mental condition, the book is very cluttered and the thoughts are unorganized. In addition, the author goes off on tangents on random math ideas and theories that have no relevance to the rest of the story. This hindered thinking process obstructs the flow of the novel.
The Ugly:
- The last thing which I can think of is the language used- if you can think of any “bad word”, this book has it, and they’re common. It’s a huge obstacle on me giving this book any good opinion.
2.5/10 stars.
EDITED 11/6/10 for clarity and a couple grammar errors
