The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time

Generally Students of middle school and high school will have summer reading list. There will be numerous books in the list, they can pick one book from it and read it during the break. Here I got my list from my kids! The books that they enjoyed during 2022-2023 academic year.

Firstly I picked up this book written by Mark Haddon.

This book was in my high school daughter's (9th grade) curriculum. When she was in the middle of the book, she told me that I must read the book because it is very good. Here I read it on and off for a week and finished it.

Christopher Boone, 15 year old boy narrates the story of himself. He lives with his father and mentions that he lost his mother 2 years ago in a heart attack. One fine evening he finds his neighbor's dog being murdered by someone with the garden fork. Police arrest him for the murder and shortly releases him which makes him want to investigate "who killed the dog?". He writes the investigation as a book! (Which is the one that we are reading now). 

During this process he figures out other secrets that was being hidden from him by his father along with the Dog Killer. His life changes up side down. The uncertainty that affects Christopher's life forms the plot of the story. 

With in the few pages the author, actually the protagonist of this book let the readers know that he is a specially abled person. The story moves from his view point which is interesting for us up to some extend. In between the story there are so much information about Math, Astronomy, Science, Animals, Maps so on and so forth. Christopher thinks logically all the time which requires the above details for the story to move forward and sometime it is simply what was going on in  his head.

There are approximately 10-15 characters come in the book and most of them are very understanding of Christopher's condition. All of them were written in detail because this is how Christopher records people in his mind. 

To our surprise Christopher manages to travel to London on his own without much planning(?). His logical thinking helps him along the way over his limitations. 

The story gets interesting in the middle and again jumps into the ocean of detailing and facts which was tiring for readers like me.

The author might have done loads of research before writing this book for sure. Kudos to him!!!

Even though I fairly know about Specially Abled people and their behavioral patterns, this book opens up a new door about them. Christopher's Narration about his classmates make us emotional in places at the same time teaches us to be grateful of the life that we have at our hand. 

First of all we need to learn how to co-exist and share this universe with people like Christopher.

Over all it is a unique book for me. When I asked my daughter why this book was recommended in the curriculum she answered that this book comes under "Coming Of Age" category. 

I am still wondering why she asked me to read this particular book and share the review!!!

Some of the lines that I enjoyed reading are below!