Page Count: 226
Rating: I am still not sure... 3.5ish Stars
Source: I purchased the book from Barnes & Noble
Synopsis: Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.
Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, for fifteen-year-old Christopher everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning. He lives on patterns, rules, and a diagram kept in his pocket. Then one day, a neighbor's dog, Wellington, is killed and his carefully constructive universe is threatened. Christopher sets out to solve the murder in the style of his favourite (logical) detective, Sherlock Holmes. What follows makes for a novel that is funny, poignant and fascinating in its portrayal of a person whose curse and blessing are a mind that perceives the world entirely literally.
Review:
This book was a wild ride of 226 pages, and I loved the vast, vast majority of it. I loved our main character, Christopher John Francis Boone. He has Asperger's (at least I am pretty sure he does... correct me if I am wrong.) and it was really interesting seeing everything from his point of view. He had very unique viewpoints on different social situations. His social disorders make it difficult for him to be in public, he has a very extreme form of Asperger's, or so it seems to me... I honestly do not know much about it and the effects of it on mental health except the usually stereotype for having problems with speech, and other things of that nature.
The story starts with the death of Chris' neighbor Mrs Shears dog named Wellington, who was stabbed to death with a garden fork. Chris finds the poor dog bleeding out, and is then caught by Mrs. Shears holding the dog... and here starts a crazy wild ride of Chris trying to find the dog's murderer along with many other things... as he writes a book about this encounter and other encounters he has with the strangers in the city, and school, and more.
I really enjoyed the way Chris observed everything in the world, because it was so different from how most ways people would describe things and I truly appreciated it. I cared about him so immensely much, and as soon as the book started, I loved him, and wanted him to be safe.
I loved Siobhan because she acted as a mother figure for Chris, and she was a great mentor to him through his every day life, when his father wasn't there for him, because he was working, or because he was drinking, and it was difficult for him to cope with.
Chris is extremely intelligent, and his viewpoint on the world, as I have mentioned, is very logical and unimaginative, but it seems so great, and I would love to be able to talk to him, which would be difficult because he does not enjoy talking to people, especially strangers because he doesn't trust them.
This book was phenomenal for the first 100 pages, and it just slowly degraded... and the ending did not satisfy me... I feel like there was more to Chris' story that was left untold and that's the main reason I lowered my rating so much... because it didn't feel like an ending, it felt like the author/publisher decided to stop the book there, because the two main storylines had "finished" but I don't think it was finished...
Overall, the characters were phenomenal and I really enjoyed the book, but I think there was more to be explored... but maybe that shows the limited viewpoint that Chris has...
There are more opinions I have, that I can't express due to spoilers... but know that things are not as they seem... and I loved that... I was not surprised, but I thought it was written well despite the predictability of that part.
Nice bllog post
ReplyDelete