The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time #1//pages 1-119

       I am now more than halfway through the novel (quite the long title) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. A brief summary to this book would start with the main character, Christopher. The book is written in a first person narrative style where a boy Christopher, is writing the events in his world as a chapter book he will one day publish. He is diagnosed with autism which adds to some of his quirky characteristics; such as disliking yellow and brown to the point where he cannot eat things of that color, hating being touched, lack of knowledge regarding emotions of others and social skill, and strong talent for math. These characteristics impact his actions and the plot of this novel. I like Christopher because he puts me in a perspective I don't see in my everyday life. I am looking through the eyes of someone who may be described as different, and who faces challenges I don't have to face, which reminds me that everyone always is always battling something no matter how they appear to the eye.
       The novel begins by Christopher making the discovery that the next door neighbor's dog has been murdered by a garden fork. The police come and suspect he did this because he is holding the dog in his arms, mourning the loss of its life. The officer tries to pull Christopher away, which triggers his fear of being touched, so he hit the officer, sending him to jail to be bailed out. After the situation gets cleared and the boy is sent home, he is on a mission to solve who killed the dog. Christopher goes Sherlock Holmes mode and goes door to door in the neighborhood to find clues. He didn't find anything so far regarding the dog, but clues regarding his mother. The book shifts focus from this and goes on to discuss what happened to his mother. His father tells him a lie that his mother died from a heart attack, but later on we will find that is not the case. Christopher learns from one of the neighbors that his mother had an affair with another neighbor, Mr.Shears. At first he did not think anything of it because he was thoroughly convinced that his mother was dead. He will later look through his fathers room innocently trying to find a book he lost. However this lead to a discovery of hundreds of letters addressed to him from his once thought dead mother. The letters wrote about her new life in London with her new love, Mr.Shears. She wrote that since Christopher had autism and behavioral problems, she could not deal with the stress of taking care of him due to her lack of patience. The father admitted to hiding the letters and the truth to protect him, which Christopher had trouble understanding, and this is where I am now in the book.
      This book is one of the few books I can actually read and enjoy. I normally dislike reading most of the time and tend to lose focus as I am trying to comprehend what is happening in the text, but with this novel I don't seem to have that issue. I like how the plot has many unexpected turns and doesn't only focus on one subject. The book puts me in a different light and makes me think in a different way then I normally would.