the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

Well, once again, I agree with everything Carly said in her book review. I also loved the description of "special needs." I also cheered when Christopher overcame some of his fears and managed to find his mother. Well said, Carly.

A few more things to add - it did feel like the book was actually written by someone with autism. I don't personally know anyone with autism and I confess to not knowing that much about the disease. It was very interesting to read all about how his mind worked. When something happened in the book that would elicit feelings, Christopher followed it up with a chapter on something factual - like the constellations or a math problem.

And yes, I did like the math problems in the book. That comes from being a "math geek." I thought all the information in the book was really interesting.

It must be so hard for families who have autistic children. Bravo to them! While I didn't appreciate some of the language Christopher's father used, you could tell that he loved his son very much and would do anything for him. I was glad to see that by the end of the book, Christopher and his father were getting along better. I thought it was clever of him to suggest rebuilding their trust as a "project" to do together. Very clever, since it's so rational - which is exactly the way Christopher's mind works.

A very interesting book - cleverly written and pretty inspiring. I'm glad we could read this one together.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

I finished this book a couple of days ago and I've been trying to think of something intelligent to say about it. I hadn't heard about it at all before, so I enjoyed reading something completely new to me. While reading I discovered that it is on the list of the National Endowment for the Art's top 100 books. I don't agree with all of their choices (I hate Catcher In The Rye - anyone else?) but figured it was worth checking out.

The first thing I noticed in this book was that the chapters were prime numbers. The main character and narrator, Christopher, has some version of autism and is very good with numbers. I am not. (I was pleased to recognize the prime numbers before he explained them!) I did my best to follow his explanations of mathematical and logical problems, but I admit to skipping over some of the paragraphs involving formulas, quadratic equations, or similar. I don't know the value of N, I never will, and it makes my brain hurt to think about it. (Sarah admits to being a "math geek" - her words not mine. I wonder if she could figure them out?)

I found Christopher's narrative to be very interesting and quite funny at times. His description of "special needs" was great; by Christopher's definition we all have special needs. I liked the way he justified his actions, explaining why he did something or didn't like a certain situation but did so without apologizing for his choices. And I inwardly cheered for him when he managed to temporarily overcome his very real fears of new places, strangers, and stimulation to get where he wanted to go. He is definitely an unlikely hero but I found it reassuring that, with perseverance, he could accomplish what for him is a major task. And if he can do it, so can I.

The author did a wonderful job of creating his narrator. We see what Christopher sees, and we understand more because his mind does not process all of the information in the same way. The way the book is written, complete with run-on sentences and descriptions that are literal facts from Christopher's perspective, gives the impression that what you are reading is a novel written by someone with autism. I liked the way he used different fonts and elements important to his narrator (math, lists, diagrams) to tell Christopher's story.

So, in short, very cleverly written and unexpectedly inspiring.