Reviewed by Adriann Ranta

First Sentence: “It was 7 minutes after midnight.”

It’s immediately clear that this is not our average narrator. The sentences are short, direct, and simple. Observations are described sort of backwards: “It looked as if [the dog] was running on its side, the ways dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead.” The narrator is completely detached as he describes the poodle lying run through with a garden fork.

I went into this book knowing that the narrator was autistic, but this isn’t overtly explained in the first 50 pages. It reminds me of the video “In My Language” by A.M. Baggs, an autistic woman who movingly depicts the thought process of an autistic person and how they are somehow thought of as less than human. What is apparent, however, is that the narrator is someone of intense special needs and agoraphobia.

The next section on page two (with the number 3 next to it) explains the narrator’s name is Christopher John Francis Boone, he knows “all the countries in the world and their capital cities, and every prime number up to 7,057.” Then there are a series of diagrams of smiley faces depicting emotions that he doesn’t understand.

After another page break (numbered 5), Christopher takes the fork out of the dog and hugs him—until Mrs. Shears comes out and starts screaming.

I love this image, it's so poignantly detached from typical human responses.

Another break (7), the narrator explains that this is a murder mystery novel, because that’s what he likes to read. Dogs are honest and trustworthy and he likes them more than people because he always knows what they’re thinking.

The chapters are numbered by prime numbers, which is pretty clever. The sections are also very short, which I always like. The snappy sentence structure and short chapters make the book fly by.

At section 11, the police arrive. He describes a hole in the policewoman’s stocking and a leaf stuck to the bottom of the policeman’s shoe. I doubt he’s made the connection that they think he killed the dog. After a series of questions, Christopher balls up on the ground. When the policeman lifts him up, Chris hits him.

Describing all these minute observations is a really great technique. It further sets the narrator apart from those around him, underlining his social anxiety and otherness.

At 13, he explains this will not be a funny book because he doesn’t understand jokes.

Something that I think is particularly effective with a character with a mental disorder that requires a lot of explanation (or any other situation that isn't easy for a majority of readers to identify with) is spreading out his though processes like this. He doesn’t understand smiley faces, he doesn’t understand jokes, he likes dogs more than people… but it doesn’t read like a medical journal. It’s evocative and poignant.

Section 17 has the policeman arresting Chris for assault. In the back of the police car, he thinks about astronomy and the Big Bang.

While most people in the back of a police car would be freaking out at this point, he’s completely calm now that he’s away from people.

Section 19 explains that all the chapter numbers in this book are prime numbers (if the reader hadn’t figured it out already). The section ends with a quote that I think sums up the character pretty well: “Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about it” (12).

23 has Chris emptying his pockets at the police station—a Swiss army knife, a red paperclip, string, the house key, etc. The policemen try to take his watch but he screams so they let him keep it. They ask him who his family is, and he explains it’s Father, then lists off all the other family members who have died. He likes it in the police cell since it’s almost a perfect cube and everything has a specific purpose.

Another great example of an uncomfortable situation made comfortable to someone with autism. I really liked this image.

Christopher’s friend Siobhan tries to explain the nuances of facial expressions and metaphor (section 29), but it’s too complicated for him to understand. He does understand the Greek etymology of the word “metaphor” and the apocryphal story behind the name “Christopher,” but he thinks metaphors are just another word for lies and not saying what you mean.

At 1:12AM Christopher’s father arrives (section 31) and his yells can be heard from Chris’ cell. All the questions the police inspector asks Chris are answered very literally and he is only given a warning. He picks up his pocket contents on the way out.

A really moving image of Christopher’s father arriving at jail is their greeting: since Chris doesn’t like to be touched, they both fan out their fingers and touch the tips to show that they love each other. It must be so hard to be a father and not be able to hug your son.

Section 37 begins on page 19. Chris explains that he never tells lies because it makes him think about all the other things that didn’t happen and he gets shaky and scared.

Section 41 has Chris’ father banging on the steering wheel trying to get Chris to leave the dog incident alone. When they get home, Chris feeds his rat, Toby, and notices his dad crying. He assumes it’s because he’s sad about the dog dying too.

His mother died two years ago (43). His father won’t let him visit her—he loves the uniforms and machines in hospitals—and says there’s something wrong with her heart.

Section 47 has Christopher explaining to a psychiatrist why 4 red cars in a row made a Good Day and why 4 yellow cars made a Black Day, when he won’t eat or speak to anyone. It makes him feel safe. He wants to be an astronaut, even though he knows it’s not likely, and remembers Terry from school calling him a “spazzer” who would only collect trolleys at supermarkets.

Section 53 goes back to his mother dying. She died unexpectedly of a heart attack in the hospital even though she led a healthy life. Oblivious to his father’s emotional pain of losing his wife, Chris asks what kind of heart attack? Was it an aneurism or an embolism? He remembers Mrs. Shears coming over, cooking dinner, and holding his father’s head in her bosoms, then Chris beating her in Scrabble.

Section 59 has Chris deciding that he’s going to find out who killed Wellington, Mrs. Shears’ dog, even though his dad told him to “stay out of other people’s business.” But he doesn’t understand what “other people’s business” is, plus people break rules all the time. He likes Siobhan because she explains what he should and shouldn’t do exactly. That night, Christopher knocks on Mrs. Shears’ door, explaining that he didn’t kill Wellington. She closes the door on him. He then creeps back into her yard and peers into her tool shed, seeing the fork that killed the dog. Mrs. Shears sees him and tells him to go home or she’ll call the police again, so Chris goes home to feed his rat.

Mrs. Forbes from school told Chris that his mother had gone to heaven (61), but Chris knows heaven doesn’t exist. We just stop living and our body rots, like Rabbit did when he buried him in the yard. He imagines his mother’s molecules floating all over the world.

Section 67, page 34, is a Saturday. Christopher’s father is watching a football match so Chris decides to ask the neighbors if they saw anyone killing Wellington. He doesn’t like strangers because they’re hard to understand. He knocks on the door opposite Mrs. Shears, asking Mr. Thompson pointed questions without eye contact. Mr. Thompson explains he was out of town Thursday night.

It seems like all the other characters in this novel are hostile in some way—swearing way too much or yelling a lot. Maybe this is because Chris is so sensitive to it, but it makes him seem even more fragile.

Then he talks to a black woman in number 44, but she doesn’t know either. She suggests talking to his father.

Mr. Wise, the man in number 43, smells like “body odor and old biscuits and off popcorn, which is what you smell of if you haven’t washed for a very long time, like Jason at school smells because his family is poor” (38). Mr. Wise makes a joke about how young policemen are getting and laughs, so Chris walks away.

Mrs. Alexander is outside trimming a hedge, wearing jeans and sneakers. She doesn’t know anything about Wellington, but she tries chatting a while about her grandson, and dogs in general. She offers him tea and says she'll bring to it out to him since he won’t go into stranger’s houses. She’s inside longer than 6 minutes so Chris gets nervous and walks away.

Since Chris knows most murders are committed by those who knew the victim, he makes Mr. Shears his prime suspect. He had left two years ago and never came back, which is why Mrs. Shears made dinner sometimes and spent the night—she didn’t have anyone to be a wife to.

Chris is touchingly oblivious to emotional relationships.

Section 71 on page 43 explains that all the kids at Chris’ school have special needs, even though everyone has “special needs,” like his dad who carries his own sweetener around with him, or Mrs. Peter’s hearing aid. Chris wants to take A Level math, which was something his father had to fight for. He’s planning on going to university for math or physics, which would mean his dad would have to move with him since he doesn’t want to live alone or with strangers.

Chris had thought that his father and mother would get a divorce because they fought a lot (73). But he knows they fought because Chris has “Behavioral Problems,” such as hating the colors yellow and brown, not using his toothbrush if anyone has touched it, not smiling, screaming when he’s confused, etc.

Chris uses a list to discuss this, similar to the list he made for deducing his Prime Suspect, the diagram he drew of his neighborhood, and the wooden block he had in his pocket when he was arrested. Flipping through the book, there are tons of charts and diagrams, cleverly showing Christopher’s extreme logic and organization.

Section 79 on page 48 has Chris arriving home and his father asking him where he’s been. He explains he got a call from Mrs. Shears saying Chris was snooping around in her garden. Chris says he was trying to find out who killed Wellington, and that Mr. Shears is his prime suspect. His dad slams his fist on the table, saying he needs to “stop this bloody detective game,” and that Mrs. Shears isn’t a friend anymore. He makes Chris promise on page 50 that he will give it up, which Chris promises.

The first 50 pages ends with Chris making a promise that we know he’ll break. He hates lies and he knows that if he breaks a promise it becomes a lie. This seems to be a minor plot point, but it’s primed to be a big source of internal conflict for Christopher. The conflict with this father also seems like a minor plot point, but the thought of a single father with an autistic son that doesn’t listen to him is emotive and empathy-inspiring. Haddon’s writing is a blazing example of great “Show Don’t Tell”: characters are always reacting to Chris, which he is oblivious to, and the reader is forced to add their own opinions and feelings.

Industry-wise, this might be a difficult sale if it were a debut. I don’t think there are any other novels out there written from the point of view of an autistic 15-year-old, and editors are touchy about a lack of comparable sales. That would be unfortunate, however, as this is obviously a wonderful book.