Christopher John Francis Boone is a fifteen year old boy who lives with his father, loves animals, and doesn't understand human emotions-including his own. With help he has learned what makes him feel :) good, like orange crush and licorice laces, and Toby his rat and starring up at the stars at night. And he knows what makes him feel :( bad, like new places, people, too much information, or anyone touching him. But he doesn't understand a lot of the faces that Siobhan from school shows him or Mr. Jeavons the school psychiatrist asks him about. Christopher is different from a lot of other teenage boys and he goes to a special kind of school with other special students. He doesn't like to be compared to them because he thinks a lot of them are stupid, but he's not allowed to use that word or call them that according to what his mother used to say or Siobhan at school, he's supposed to say they have learning difficulties or that they have special needs (but that's stupid too because everyone has learning difficulties). But it is his book so he can write what he wants in it. He's keeping this book for his investigation. He's investigating like Sherlock Holmes and he is investigating a murder. There was a murder on his street of Wellington the big poodle at Mrs. Shears house, which is right down the street from his house and Mrs. Shears is a friend of their's and so was Wellington because Christopher likes dogs. The Police and Siobhan says that killing a dog isn't the same thing as killing a human and they don't investigate or search as hard for things like that because it isn't a human, but Christopher liked Wellington and he thinks dogs are just a good as humans, in fact he likes them more.
This is a book written from the first-person point of view of a fifteen year old boy with autism and a very good understanding of facts and numbers (maths). He focuses and relies on the here and now, the real things of this world, and math problems. He doesn't like idioms, similes, metaphors, slang, or imagination. Facts are much more preferred, thank you. The book starts on the night that he finds Wellington skewered with a garden fork on Mrs. Shears front lawn, an event that he is later blamed and questioned about. He determines that he has to find out who murdered Wellington and the life that he thought he knew and was comfortable with swiftly begins to unravel. For a boy who doesn't understand human emotions a lot of events puzzle him and he has a hard time coping and understanding why some people do and choose the things that they do, it's not logical, even if it is human.
Mark Haddon does a remarkable job at capturing the mindset and ideas of an individual with autism and expressing it in a way readers can relate to. This book illustrates how some mindsets can be different. Where some individuals focus on feelings, others enjoy literature, and still others are focused on numbers and facts, things that are measurable and recordable, like Christopher. Sometimes different mindsets make certain things easy for individuals to understand while other topics and ideas are alien and something that makes ones' head spin. This is a tale of murder, mystery, a hidden past, and an unsure future of a boy who likes to deal in absolutes and certainties. But all it takes is one variable in the equation to change for the outcome be to a different world entirely.
Overall this book is really well-written and an interesting read. Highly recommended for those working with individuals with autism or other neo-neurological learning disabilities. Also a good read for those looking for different perspectives or books that make you question the writer/reporters point of view.
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