This Whitbread Book of the Year Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize award-winner is a most captivating book.
Fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone has photographic memory. He understands math, science, and patterns. What he can’t understand are other human beings. Christopher is suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome, commonly referred to as autism. Christopher is autistic.
Christopher decides to solve the strangely upsetting murder mystery of his neighbour’s dog and even runs away from home to uncover the truth. This book shows life from Christopher’s point of view.
Christopher is an interesting fictional creation: believable, oddly lovable, and a moving education in difference.
This complex book is both funny and deeply moving. As we take a look at the world from a different perspective, we see things more clearly and find that we understand ourselves better.
The author switches pace halfway through the book. From a whodunit it suddenly turns into a story about the relationship of the boy's parents and the travails of Asperger's syndrome.
ReplyDeleteI can't help but wish he'd stuck with the whodunit!