The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger's, a form of autism. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down.
*This is not a traditional murder mystery !*
I've had this book on my shelves for 4 years, mainly due to fellow reviewers making me want to read it. My youngest daughter studied it at college recently, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to dive into it.
This is not my first foray into the world of literary autism with a narrator having Asperger's syndrome. It's curious how I always manage to relate to them in several ways, except in the maths perspective - I have always hated maths, I hate maths, I will always hate maths. Sciences, on the other hand, I love.
Chris is emotionally dissociated, his parents can't touch him, nobody can touch him. When he finds the corpse of the neighbour's dog outside his house, he endeavours to investigate to find the murderer, because he is a fan of Sherlock Holmes (but not of Arthur Conan Doyle !) and wants to write a book about it. However, his investigations will lead to discoveries that will not make his world easier.
I mostly enjoyed Christopher's ramblings about things that interest him, however what I found most poignant was his relationship to his parents, how they reacted, how he reacted in the only way that he could. But as much as these moments were compelling, the rest of the book, especially the first half, I found nice but not great.
So, here's my ratings : 3 stars, a book I don't plan on reading again, but that I enjoyed reading anyway.
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