An Abundance of John Green

One of the things I love about my book club, Flips Flipping Pages, is how it opened up new worlds of reading for me.

In the past, I was averse to reading books other people raved about, mainly because I like discovering books on my own, and with the exception of my cousin Dianne, I don’t know anyone who has the same taste in books as I do. The more a book was foisted on me, the more I resisted it, and if I was interested in a popular book, I usually chose to read it long after the hype had gone down.

Making friends with other readers made me realize a bunch of things. One, I was missing out on a whole lot of books. Two, people with entirely different tastes in books can like a same book, or even find different elements to like in one book. And three, you don’t even have to like a book to find it interesting!

Of course, this realization has had its repercussions: the inability to walk out of a book store empty-handed, the triple-layered shelves of TBR books, and transforming from a strict monobookist to a juggling polybookist, but because there are other people as pathologically addicted as I am to books, I don’t really mind.

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is a short novel about Christopher Boone, a 15-year old autistic boy, who one day finds his neighbor’s dog murdered, with a garden fork sticking out of it.

Because he loves puzzles (he is exceptionally gifted in Math), Christopher decides to solve the mystery of the murder (and write a book about it)… Except that he discovers more than he ever bargained for.

The book is a refreshing read because it’s told from the point of view of an autistic kid, and you get an insight into how Christopher’s mind works, how he deals with people, his emotions, and all his quirks. I actually thought it was a murder mystery, but it was more of a coming-of-age novel, revealing how an autistic boy deals with the different events in his life, and how he makes sense of the chaos using his own logic.

All in all, a very insightful read.

***
My copy: Vintage contemporaries mass market paperback, yet to be upgraded

My rating: 4/5 stars