english: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

We've been reading a novel named The Curious Incident of the Dog n the Night-Time the past few weeks and during the class conversation we were given some questions, where we were suppose to choose one of the questions. Here is my answer:

Why did you like/dislike the book?

I didn’t like the book, mainly because it’s just not a good book. The story itself is great, but it’s not a book I’d pick up to read, let alone continue to read after the first 50 pages.

The author has done a good job doing his research about Asperger syndrome and he describes Christopher’s mind very well, but the book itself – not good. My mind got tired after the first ten pages after having to read every page over and over again just to understand what he meant. Yes, I know that Christopher always explains why he is thinking this and that, but I found it exhausting and confusing instead of helpful. Also I don’t have Asperger syndrome so it’s hard for me to understand why he acts like he does, even though the author tells me exactly why and still I can’t relate to him what so ever.

One of the other reasons I didn’t like the novel is the characters. I don’t like Christopher’s mother’s character because she is childish, selfish and still she believes she has the right to barge into his life, just because she wrote him letters – as if that should make up for her leaving. She could have called, visited and so on. Another character I dislike is his father, or it’s sort of a love/hate relationship I’ve got with this man. He loves Christopher very much and he puts up with all of his madness, but still I can’t get over the fact that he killed a dog just because Mrs. Shears was tired of him, lied about it and told a child that his mother was dead (when she wasn’t.) I can see that he thought it was easier, but in my book that just makes you weak.

All in all, the story and the concept is good, it’s a good description of how a person with Asperger syndrome thinks and deals with different situations, but it’s not a good book; it was exhausting to read, difficult to keep up with all the facts and the story itself is kind of boring. Therefore my conclusions is that I didn’t like it.