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

Pros: Insightful and unusual
Cons: None for me

I'd heard all the hype, read so many reviews, and listened to so much spiel in general about this book, that I thought I better get down to it and read the actual thing myself. So I did. For anyone visiting from Mars, or someone who, for reasons ...

Pros: Fascinating character and voice, creative and touching
Cons: Plot becomes nonexistent in places

A writer, according to Thomas Mann, "is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." Unless the "other people" include Christopher Boone.Christopher is 15 years old. He lives with his father in England, ...

Pros: Riveting, funny-sad "mystery" told through an autistic boy's eyes.
Cons: None. None! Read this book, now.

Perhaps the most amazing quality of fiction is its ability to put us into the heads of those who can ...

Pros: everything
Cons: nothing

I read and enjoy a wide range of books, but it is not usual for a book to capture my attention so completely that I have a hard time putting it down at all. But this was the case with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark ...

Pros: Contemporary literature at its best, Christopher Boone, funny and interesting
Cons: Some tangents went over my head

A book that I had the privilege of reading earlier this year for my school’s book club has resurfaced again in my life in the form of a required book for my Contemporary Literature class so I thought; why not give you my take on it? The Curious ...

Pros: Great story-telling, interesting choice of main character
Cons: None.

I'm a big fan of fiction because I'm a fan of story-telling, the old-fashioned weaving of words to envelope the reader in a blanket of the author's landscape, to pull them in and with only words create an experience that the reader takes part in. To me, ...

Pros: A gloriously touching read
Cons: Few of note

“This will not be a funny book. I cannot tell jokes because I do not understand them” Just who would kill Mrs Shear’s poodle with a garden fork? This is the question Christopher Boone asks himself as he cradles the still warm body of ...

Pros: Touching, moving, original and never sugary.
Cons: None.

There is only one book that has made me cry like a little girl (twice, no less) and that was Captain Corelli's Mandolin (the ending, and when that big soldier dies). One other book came perilously close, making me misty-eyed but not actually ...

Pros: Clever, original and insightful.
Cons: Harsh language, basic plot.

Christopher Boone is 15 years, 3 months and 2 days old, has Asperger's Syndrome and is investigating a murder. From this premise, Mark Haddon has produced one of the most original and intriguing books of recent years; the crime, the curious incident ...

Pros: A unique novel, educational
Cons: Plodding, one trick pony

Christopher, a fifteen-year old boy with Asperger's syndrome, finds the neighbour's dog dead with a pitchfork stuck through him. Deciding to do a bit of detective work he tries to find the culprit. This gives him the idea to write a book about his ...

Pros: Interesting storyline, plenty of suspense, and interesting diversions.
Cons: Contains bad language.

One day someone mentioned to me a new book about a 15-year-old boy with Asperger Syndrome. She seemed to think it was called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Garden, which I immediately took to be a parody of the famous Sherlock Holmes ...

Pros: Interesting premise and protagonist
Cons: Peripheral character development

In essence, this is a murder mystery. There is a murder, there is an investigation, and there is a resolution. There ends the similarities between this murder mystery and most others. What makes it different is: The victim was a poodle; the investigator ...

Pros:

A unique and exciting point of view on the world. Really clean writing.

Cons: Nothing springs to mind.

This is a wonderfully entertaining and touching and sometimes frustrating book. What first attracted me to it was the basic premise...a mystery (the "murder" of a neighbor's dog) investigated by an autistic boy...told through the eyes of the boy himself. ...

Pros: An interesting and novel presentation of the inner-workings of a boy with Asperger's Disorder.
Cons: NOT a great novel - but an important portrait painted by a someone 'different.'

There have been many books written about various clinical conditions that impact the ways in which those effected think. Much of that literature is ‘clinical’ or ‘professional’ in nature – not generally written for lay people, but ...

Pros: Reads like a diary from the point of view of someone suffering from autism.
Cons: May seem too cutesy and overboard with the numerous illustrations done by Boone.

Mark Haddon’s debut novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, is a breezy read starting the main protagonist, Christopher John Francis Boone, the autistic narrator who stumbles upon Wellington, the impaled dead poodle of ...