Rating: 
Summary: Loved it!
Review: This is a terrific book. The main character is one of the quirkiest you'll encounter, however you come to identify with him and cheer him on. His autistic world view starts to make more sense than the normal world view of those people around him. Plus there are diagrams, and he explains the "Let's Make A Deal" door selection dilemma so I finally got it! What more could you want in a book?
Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully funny and poignant read
Review: In the second chapter of this book (actually labelled as "3" because this is the second prime number), we are introduced to Christopher, the narrator, who is writing a mystery novel as a class project. Christopher is an extremely intelligent 15-year old who just happens to be autistic. He begins his tale by relating his discovery of a neighbor's dog, which had been murdered with a garden fork. Because he likes both dogs and mysteries, Christopher sets off to find the killer, but what starts as a story about a dog becomes a story about Christopher's life. Not only do we learn about Christopher's many quirks, but also we learn the explanations for his seemingly irrational behavior, making it seem almost logical. The book is surprising funny, as Christopher, with his limited emotional range, makes the perfect straight man. Overall a delightful, different, and quick little read.
Rating:
Summary: A curiously good read
Review: Fifteen-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone, the narrator of Mark Haddon's Holmesian-titled Curious Incident, comes upon his neighbor's dog late one night lying dead in its yard, run through with a pitchfork. After hugging the dog for precisely four minutes, and after being accused of the animal's murder by its distraught, pajama'd owner, Christopher determines to investigate the mystery of the canicide. What makes this task particularly challenging, however, and what sets this book apart, is that Christopher is autistic. Though he is able to communicate and he is unusually intelligent, Christopher's disorder renders simple activities--talking to strangers, traveling by public transportation--often prohibitively difficult. (Christopher cannot interpret facial expressions well, he cannot abide being touched, and his moods are governed by the colors of the cars he sees en route to school. But he excels at math and science and can, for example, rattle off a list of prime numbers up to 7,057.)In addition to undertaking to solve the dog's murder, Christopher writes down the story of his investigation in the form of a novel--The Curious Incident itself--a book whose sparse but highly readable prose ends up being about far more than a single dog's death. In passages alternating between real-life events and Christopher's scientific and mathematical musings, the curious incident of the pitchfork-pierced dog is explained, further deceptions are revealed, and the reader is introduced to an extraordinary mind.
Rating:
Summary: The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time
Review: This is an absolutely unshakeable story of about an autistic boy's discovery of his own life being hidden from him. I don't have any autistic friends or relatives, so I will not be praising the novel for its accuracy based on how much I know; I can only say it's a first-rate read, with lots of wonderful humour to support what is at times a heart-wrenching book. Our narrator, young Christopher Boone, lives with his dad, and displays remarkable brilliance at the special school where caring teachers always take an interest in him. But his autism means that he cannot process his own emotions in so-called normal ways...so that even though he can handle any logic problem, remember obscure facts as well as details of the past, and read fiction--especially murder mysteries--with the keen analytic powers of even th most highly-rated of Amazon book reviewers, Christopher needs routine and calm to really feel content. Distress may curl him into a ball, turn him into a shouter, or throw him in to long stretches of silence that protect him from the unpredictability, or the disappointments, of the world. Christopher decides to play amateur detective after he finds a neighbour's dead poodle, little knowing how this exercise in applied logic, Holmesian-style, will reward him with terrible pain. The curious incident with the dog leads him to conflict with his father, who forbids the snooping, and takes away Christopher's precious journal of how the case has been going. But Christopher persists in his investigations, and while searching for the confiscated journal in his father's closet, discovers a second mystery, a bigger one, that involves him, and changes his life forever. I don't want to say much more about the plot, except that it is resolved exquisitely, though in a way that may bring a tear to a reader's eye...like mine, for example. Christopher's desire to know the full truth about what he discovers propels him out into a world that he has never seen, and at times he doesn't do very well; the agonizing hours he spends, terrified, at a tube station (where his beloved pet rat goes missing down on the tracks) is an intense reading experience. But Christopher braves as much as he possibly can, to bring closure to a dreadful family tragedy. I wish to thank Jenette Kahn for sending me this wonderful book as a gift, otherwise I might never have known it existed. And I hope I helped out with whatever it was I was helping with.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent read
Review: I read this book all in one go, it was easy to get into and perfect for a lazy sunday read. The main character, the autistic boy was really powerful, and after reading this book i really felt as if my own perception of the world had changed, from looking at the world through this young persons eyes.
The story line is straightforward but draws you in, and is full of raw emotion, honesty, and realism, of life in todays society.
Don't miss out, it's a top read.
Rating:
Summary: Artfully Autistic
Review: If having autism could be demonstrated quite literally, this book is it! I have known many individuals with autism over the last 30 years and I saw many of them in the character of the narrator, Christopher. Christopher's character is the essence of the person with autism, who wants the world to be well-ordered and logical. He does mathematical equations in his head to get calm and I wish that would work for me!
I loved reading Christopher's thought processes thoughout the book. Christopher decides to investigate who murdered Wellington, the neighbor's dog. His father tells him to mind his own business and not investigate. But Christopher thinks about what Sherlock Holmes would do and investigates anyway. Christopher reasons that most people who kill others usually kill someone they know and are close to. He then reasons it would not unusual to be murdered by someone in your family on Christmas Day!
This book is a work of art and it provides pathos, wisdom and understanding to the curious world of people with autism in the daytime and the nighttime.
Rating:
Summary: A quick but fascinating read!
Review: Fifteen-year-old Christopher, a child with autism who lives with his father in Swindon, England, is horrified to discover that their neighbor's beloved pet dog Wellington has been killed by a garden fork. Much to the dismay of his father, Christopher begins to investigate who was responsible for this animal's murder. Despite his dad instructions to stop interefering in other people's business, Christopher does not stop persuing his goal. In the course of trying to solve the murder without his father's knowledge, Christopher makes other startling discoveries about his family. What is most amazing about this book is how Christopher's thoughts clearly express the turmoil that permeate the mind of an autistic individual. Such a person understands the world differently from an average person, and the book does well at illustrating that difference. By putting this young man's thought processes into words through a fascinating story, the author has the ability to influence his readers to become more compassionate to a person in the real world with such an aflliction. It's written so well that it almost seems to be a real story. Reminiscent of the way Jonathan Lethem treats Tourette's Syndrome in Motherless Brooklyn, Mark Haddon brings his readership closer to the true person inside an outer shell that can be misunderstood and frightening to others.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book!
Review: "Curious Incident" is one of the best novels I've come across in awhile. Mysterious, quirky, painful and revealing, it's a masterful debut by a new writer, hopefully the first of many.
In this novel Haddon takes on the challenge of viewing the world from the perspective of a 15 year old autistic boy, although being truly faithful to his first person narrative, the word "autism," and the concept of disability never really appear in the book. Rather, Christopher has been told he has "behavioral problems," and in his methodical way, relying on his photographic memory, he lists them--one for each letter of the alphabet. I laughed out loud--some of them --"I don't like being touched by strangers"--anyone could relate to! One evening Christopher finds that his neighbor's dog has been killed in a rather gruesome way, and despite being warned off by his neighbors and forbidden to pursue it by his father, Christopher resolves to solve the mystery. Along the way we get a first hand look at Christopher's world, which is terrifying in its variety and chaos, and we see the disorder of it all through his own eyes. Christopher believes that if he sees red cars on the way to school, it will be a good day; if he sees yellow, a bad day. This seems to be his technique for minimizing surprises--he can't deal with the unknown of a new day. Christopher realizes others view this as odd, but he very logically explains that everyone has similar rather illogical ways of starting the day--if it's raining outside many feel it's going to be a bad day, and if it's sunny a good one, even though if you work in an office the weather is fairly irrelevant! Christopher is blessed with a gifted teacher, Siobhan, who guides and encourages him; she has a knack for communicating with him in a very very clear and specific way that he can understand and act on. Has Haddon portrayed someone he knows?--although she has a minor role, the reader can envision her patience and kindness very clearly. Christopher is a mathematical genius, which to the rest of us can be hard to grasp--but he explains the "Monty Hall" problem in a way even English majors can understand. When you come to this part of the book, think about it. Christopher loves the order and logic of math and science; he dreams of being an astronaut, telling us exactly what he would like about it and what the hurdles would be. During the course of solving the mystery of the murder of the dog, Christopher makes an amazing discovery, which leads him to arrempt to go to London on his own, a terrifying journey into the unknown. Christopher minutely plans how to overcome each challenge, from covering his eyes to block out too much visual data, to mentally drawing a line across the train station floor (in red of course, a good color) and following it to avoid getting confused. Haddon also makes us feel keenly the emotional chaos Christopher's world becomes--his discovery would shatter anyone, and turns upside down the tenuous web of his relationships with the few people he has come to trust. Christopher slowly emerges from the emotional turmoil his life has become, having gained a new measure of confidence from his solo journey to London and his writing of the book about his experiences. I don't know enough about autism to know if people with the disorder can learn and change in this way, but the ending is uplifting nevertheless. I listened to this book on tape (unabridged), and I'd highly recommend it. The reader is a professional, and mimics the lower middle class accent Christopher would have perfectly, as well as convincingly taking on the other characters' parts. It's a great find for a long journey.
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Summary: Faulkner meets Salinger
Review: "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" is a brilliant tour de force - one of the most original and moving books I have read in years. The story and the way it is told are reminiscent of Faulkner's mentally challenged Benjy in "The Sound and the Fury" and the big city adventures of Salinger's teenaged protagonist, Holden Caulfield, in "Catcher in the Rye." Nevertheless, it is an original. Christopher Boone is an autistic 15 year old who lives with his father and thinks that his mother is dead. He is emotionally challenged but is so brilliant in "maths" that he is allowed to sit for the mathematics "A Levels" college entrance exams. This is a book of endless invention, humor, and pathos. It is not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: The best in a long time
Review: This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. I was initially attracted to the book because I have an autistic nephew, much younger than Christopher, and I wanted to try in some small way to see the world through his eyes. I got so much more! The characters were all very wonderfully, believable. All of them just trying, in their own ways, to make it through life the best they can. One minute I would be laughing at some wonderfully wise remark made by Christopher and the next minute I would have to put the book down for a minute because I so dreaded something really bad was going to happen to Christopher. The best thing I can say - I didn't want the book to end. At the last page, I was crying, and thinking, "God I hope he writes a sequel. I want to know how Christopher's life goes on."
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