I’ve decided to offer my first book recommendation. While I was visiting Neal’s family in Alabama, I picked up this book and read it in just a day or two. It’s a very quick read, and an incredibly unique one at that. The narrator is a 15-year-old boy with Asperger syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. I have done a fair amount of research on Asperger and autism in my efforts to help my grandfather understand one of our relatives, but it was quite interesting to get a narrator not really describing what the condition is (in fact, he never even names the condition), but rather how he experiences it.
So if you don’t know much about Asperger, or you want to glimpse it from a non-textbook perspective, give this a read. I ended up feeling that the author (Mark Haddon) did quite a masterful job at creating a world that, though not emotion-less, was somewhat emotionally ambiguous. It probably won’t leave you happy, but it won’t really leave you sad either.
*Disclaimer: the f-word is used a number of times, along with a few other curse words.
i enjoyed this book too; in fact, i haven’t read a bad review of it before! the author wrote another book called a spot of bother which is very different from this one and not as good, in my opinion.
Comment by nylusmilk — May 25, 2009 @ 10:45 pm
I work w/ a kid like this and it’s really interesting what they focus on. There’s research on eye-tracking during movies and they pay less attention to facial features during emotional scenes than ppl w/o asperger’s. Would like to read this! thx for the review
Comment by Emily — May 26, 2009 @ 4:45 am
I have Autism, and I loved this book. He really gets it.
Comment by almandite — May 26, 2009 @ 4:12 pm
We read this book for book club almost 2 years ago and as part of the book club we read an interview by the author. The author said he didn’t necessarily write the narrator as autistic or asperger’s, all he knew is that the voice of the character was very strong in his mind and that even after writing the book he didn’t “diagnose” him. Just thought that was interesting.
Comment by Ishkhanoohie — June 8, 2009 @ 1:32 am
Glad you enjoyed this book on the bedstand, Lindsay. The other one there, Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s memoir “Bring Me a Unicorn,” although very different from Haddon’s book, is one you will treasure. Enjoy!—LSC
Comment by Lorie — June 9, 2009 @ 7:51 pm