I just finished reading this book and I loved it! It’s written from the viewpoint of a 15-year-old autistic boy. The author isn’t autistic, but he appeared to hit the nail on the head with his descriptions of life through this kid’s eyes. Anyone out there who’s read it?
I read it, and found it interesting. Haddon does seem to have a good grasp of what could go on inside an autistic boy’s mind (I guess; really, I have no idea but it sounds plausible). But I had a tough time connecting emotionally with the protagonist (not surprising, right?), and so never invested myself in his story. In the end, it was an interesting technical exercise in writing. I think Haddon succeeded as well as you could with an affectless main character.
I read this book a few months ago, and absolutely loved it too. How creative!! There are two kids in my immediate family who have some degree of Asperger’s disorder, and I heard about the book on an NLD/Asperger’s list. The narrator’s voice captured perfectly the thinking and feelings that people with autism seem to possess.
Great story too. I loved the ending.
I had no trouble connecting with the boy, probably because I felt I had to connect with him to protect him, if that makes any sense. I identified strongly with his parents, particularly them being two different types of people trying to cope with the daily ups and downs of living with Christopher.
I think it was written as a Children’s book but I loved it - I agree it could read like
but I still couldn’t put it down.
How you feel about it, if you feel for the characters or is probably as arbitrary as with any other book - I took a real dislike to the narrator in “When We Were Orphans” so didn’t enjoy the book but I don’t know anyone else who had the same reaction.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Even though it was written as a young adult book, I think the themes could be enjoyed by anyone. It’s one of the few books my book club read that I actually enjoyed.
We read it for my monthly book club and it’s one of my favorites so far. I tend to enjoy books with unusual characters or plotlines and this delivered a bit of both. I LOVED terse the writing style.
I thought it would make me uncomfortable when I first read about it. My mother was a special ed teacher and my SIL is an SE teacher’s aide, so I had a bit of background on the subject. I didn’t really know what to expect. I think the author caputred his condition quite accurately and from a very pure (if that makes sense) perspective.
Really enjoyed it. Had so many emotions running through it, one minute you’re laughing out loud and the next you feel real sad.
Recommended
p.s. had a friend of a friend that works with children with Aspergers and she said it wasn’t bad but this was wrong that was wrong etc. Personally I think she just wanted to sound important.
I suppose it’s the sort of book you could nitpick to death if you wanted to, but the narrative is less about autism and more about Christopher himself and his attempt to tell his own story in his own way, which was what I really appreciated about it. I thought Haddon did an excellent job not only of letting the reader into what it might be like to be uncontrollably governed by things like your food touching other sorts of food and thereby becoming contaminated, and counting cars to determine what sort of day you might have, but also Christopher’s realizations about his parents and their relationships both with each other and other people. As a result, I didn’t have any trouble connecting emotionally with things like Christopher’s fear that his father might hurt him after discovering he killed the dog, and hid the letters from his mother; it just made logical sense to me.
A detail I loved was the fanned-finger hug. Very poignant and heartbreaking.
I think you hit the nail on the head right here. I read the book on a non-stop flight from Providence to Phoenix - Loved it! I didn’t so much identify with Christopher as I did with his descriptions of events happening in his mind. I have always been a bit of a synesthetic and have tried to foster that sense in my everyday life. Smelling colors, feeling shapes, sensing vibes from different things…all very well explained in Christopher’s actions. I loved the book.
Oh and if you liked the book in the OP - you’ll love Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens . Great Book!
I read it this summer. I thought it was very creative and compelling, and I love the extra bits that are thrown in (like the mathematics and the “Monty Hall problem” that Cecil covered way back when).
Once in a while I need to take a break from the classics and read something like this that really introduces something new.
Not to highjack too greatly, but I have wondered about the title. It is, I am pretty sure, a quote from Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Can anyone tell me how it ties into the book?
It goes something like this:
Holmes: Well, that explains everything, execpt the curious incident of the dog in the nightime.
Watson: What curious incident? I heard nothing last night.
Holmes: Exactly.
The curious incident was that there was no curious incident.
I work on a daily basis with kids with autism and while it was innacurate in several instances, I really enjoyed the book as it made every effort to wring emotion out of Christopher’s emotionless state.
Do read it - it wont take long.
Yes, I know. Thanks. But what I’m asking is: What’s the tie-in to the book?
A dog that lives near Christopher gets stabbed and killed with a garden fork one night. That’s pretty curious, I’d say.
Christopher wants to find out who did it and why. (Sherlock Holmes is one of his heroes, I guess you could say, so he wants to conduct the investigation in the manner of his role model.) That forms the basis for at least the beginning of the book.
At the risk of making myself sound self-important ;), I didn’t like it. I wanted to like it, I waited months at the library for it and I expected to like it.
I read an article with Haddon where he said he didn’t have any experience with young people with autism and he just read the DSM IV and worked from there. Well, it showed. The book just resonated wrongly with me. Autism’s a spectrum disorder and each person with an autistic dx is different to the next person with autism. It seemed to me like Haddon had a checklist and constructed Christopher around the checklist instead of creating a real character who has Aspergers. Christopher, for me, lacked character and character development. he was just this cardboard cutout of someone’s interpretation of the DSM IV.
On a side note was the language edited for the US edition? I was surprised to see the words, cunt and fuck used in the YA edition here.
Primaflora parent to one kid with an Asperger dx and one kid with a PDD NOS dx and who spends a lot of time in the autism unit at her kids school… there’s no Christophers there
I don’t know about other bookstores, but Borders has it labeled as an adult book, not young adult. So I don’t think language would be a problem.
I enjoyed the book, but none of the people I know who have autism are as high-functioning as Christopher. And the parents - I wanted to yank them out of the pages and smack them around. They thought life with Christopher was so hard. They should try raising a son who’s in the middle of the autism spectrum (like mine) rather than the high end. People I know who have a child on the lower end have it even tougher.
Anyway, like “Rain Man,” it’s nice to show the mainstream folks what autism can be like. The more people know, the more accepting they will be of people with developmental disabilities living in the community.