On a whim yesterday, with nothing really to do (it was too humid to attend to my overgrowing garden – the air was literally wet – and although my closets have morphed into a sort of black hole for clothes, I wasn’t in the mood to tidy them up just yet), I perused my bookshelves for something to read and decided upon The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a book I’ve had for several months but had put off reading, like a child hiding some candy to enjoy later. Of course, this book has been given a lot of publicity, but what hooked me was when I went to look at it on Amazon, and their review described it as ‘an autistic version of Adrian Mole.’ Since Adrian is one of my all-time favorite characters, I knew that I’d have to read this book.

Basically, it’s the story of 15-year old Christopher, an autistic boy who has a penchant for math(s), a pet rat named Toby, and hates the colors yellow and brown. He lives with his father on a relatively quiet street, until one night a neighbor’s dog is killed. Christopher, a lover of animals, decides to find out who the killer is and on the advice of his teacher, write a book about it, and so begins an odyssey that will transform his world. It’s at times funny, sad, tense, strange, enlightening and always fascinating. I really felt as though I was in the mind of an autistic person, and seeing how they feel and interact with the world around them. Christopher is one of those characters who truly comes to life and transcends the written page.

Highly recommended, and one of those few books that I would actually want to reread sometime.