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A review by agoldendear
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
This book is difficult to review. I would love to rate it higher, since I enjoyed it, but the issues hurt it a bit.
The Big Problem: Although not directly stated, the main character, Christopher, appears to be on the autism spectrum. I am not autistic, and the closest connection to it I have is someone in my family who I don't interact with very often. So, I'm not very knowledgable about autism, but as I read I had suspected that Christopher might be a stereotypical portrayal because he has savant syndrome, aka he's abnormally good at math and logical stuff while having a developmental disability. Articles online that I've seen, written by autistic people and their family members, also seem to also think that Christopher isn't a very good portrayal of an autistic person. Although the inside front cover of the book states that the author "worked with autistic individuals as a young man", it seems that he admitted that he didn't do any research before writing. All this is pretty sad. This book was written a while ago, but that shouldn’t be an excuse.
Protagonist: Before I looked into all this, I found Christopher to be a really interesting character. Disregarding the topic of realistic/unrealistic autism for a second, this book did a great job of putting me in the head of a protagonist who thought very differently from me, which I think has some value. You certainly get a good grasp of what sort of person Christopher is. His point of view also adds unique things, such as chapters being numbered by prime numbers and lots of drawings being included throughout the book.
Plot: The book basically alternates between "plot" and "non-plot"--the latter of which is Christopher's thoughts about all sorts of things, such as his dreams, outer space, and religion (and yes, he speaks very bluntly about sensitive subjects like this, so don't read this is you can't handle being offended by that sort of thing). Because of this, I can imagine that some people might get a little bored waiting to get back to the plot. Due to the chapters being fairly short, I didn't have a problem with this. I actually flew through the book and finished in two days.
Intensity: In general, this book is pretty intense. Being a murder mystery (of a dog), you might expect this, but the parts that are tense are actually surprisingly serious. I would definitely look at the content warnings if you have any concerns.
Family: Something that I really liked about this book was its portrayal of a broken household. I thought the feelings conveyed by the people in this particular relationship felt pretty real, and I liked how none of them felt one-dimensional and had different sides to them.
Overall, I would say that this book is enjoyable...if you either don't know much about autism and/or take into account that the portrayal of it is likely not accurate. I would look into reviews by people with autism before picking up the book.
The Big Problem: Although not directly stated, the main character, Christopher, appears to be on the autism spectrum. I am not autistic, and the closest connection to it I have is someone in my family who I don't interact with very often. So, I'm not very knowledgable about autism, but as I read I had suspected that Christopher might be a stereotypical portrayal because he has savant syndrome, aka he's abnormally good at math and logical stuff while having a developmental disability. Articles online that I've seen, written by autistic people and their family members, also seem to also think that Christopher isn't a very good portrayal of an autistic person. Although the inside front cover of the book states that the author "worked with autistic individuals as a young man", it seems that he admitted that he didn't do any research before writing. All this is pretty sad. This book was written a while ago, but that shouldn’t be an excuse.
Protagonist: Before I looked into all this, I found Christopher to be a really interesting character. Disregarding the topic of realistic/unrealistic autism for a second, this book did a great job of putting me in the head of a protagonist who thought very differently from me, which I think has some value. You certainly get a good grasp of what sort of person Christopher is. His point of view also adds unique things, such as chapters being numbered by prime numbers and lots of drawings being included throughout the book.
Plot: The book basically alternates between "plot" and "non-plot"--the latter of which is Christopher's thoughts about all sorts of things, such as his dreams, outer space, and religion (and yes, he speaks very bluntly about sensitive subjects like this, so don't read this is you can't handle being offended by that sort of thing). Because of this, I can imagine that some people might get a little bored waiting to get back to the plot. Due to the chapters being fairly short, I didn't have a problem with this. I actually flew through the book and finished in two days.
Intensity: In general, this book is pretty intense. Being a murder mystery (of a dog), you might expect this, but the parts that are tense are actually surprisingly serious. I would definitely look at the content warnings if you have any concerns.
Family: Something that I really liked about this book was its portrayal of
Overall, I would say that this book is enjoyable...if you either don't know much about autism and/or take into account that the portrayal of it is likely not accurate. I would look into reviews by people with autism before picking up the book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism and Animal death
Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, and Death of parent