The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (4/5)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a Young-Adult story written by Mark Haddon. The book is centered around the main character Christopher solving the murder of his neighbor's dog. Christopher Boone is a 15-year-old boy living with his single father in a small English town. Christopher has servant syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism that leads him to have the extraordinary ability to solve extremely hard math equations at a young age. One night after a long day at school Christopher takes a walk around his neighborhood only to find his neighbor's dog dead, with a garden fork sticking out of its stomach. The police are called and try to grab Christopher to lead him away from the scene of the crime, however since Chris doesn't like to be touched, he punches an officer in the face and is promptly arrested. After being taken to the station and let off with a warning, Christopher makes it a priority to figure out the mystery surrounding this murder. Along the way, many new characters are introduced along with many fun interactions and plot twists.

This book was a very pleasant read and I enjoyed it on my car ride back from Northern California. The book is moderately long at about 275 pages long, with moderate sentence lengths and page lengths. The characters are presented well and I really liked reading from the perspective of Christopher as he is someone who sees the world in a completely different light than myself. All of the interactions in the book are very organic and the characters are presented in interesting situations. I also liked how the main dilemma of the story evolved from the mystery surrounding the deceased dog to Christopher’s family life. I also really enjoyed the use of pictures to show the images presented to the main character Cristopher. If you are interested in mysteries and coming-of-age stories then I highly recommend this book to you.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and it is a great read for anyone interested in the mystery and young adult genres. The book is a moderate read and great for whenever you may need to kill time. I would advise future readers to stick with this book, as it may seem slow at times, but it always picks up in pace and delivers in the end.