Book Reviews

Thanx to all the time I spent in public transportation, I've just finished 2 books these past couple of weeks. To make this easier for me , I'll give them grades out of 4 and I'll try not to include any spoilers :

Four past Midnight - Stephen King :


A collection of 4 novellas first published by Mr.King in 1990. It's not his best work I'm afraid, or at least in my humble opinion. There were 2 stories I liked. The first is "The library policeman" (3.5/4) which was a good read but dragged on for longer than needed. It was both scary and humane. The second is The Langoliers(4/4) , which was excellent and engaging. It's obviously my favorite story and despite being the longest one, I flew through it quite quickly.

The other 2 stories disappointed me. The first is the story "Secret window, Secret garden"(2/4) which was later made into a movie starring Johnny Depp. It was eerily similar to "The Dark Half" which was a novel published by King in 1989. You could basically guess the ending before you were halfway through the story. The other was "The Sun Dog"(2.5/4). Although interesting at first , it also dragged on unnecessarily and not to a very interesting end. The ending was anti-climatic and confusing to say the least. It left way too many loose ends.

Overall verdict : 3/4

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

Now I absolutely loved this book. It was first published in 2003, originally intended for adults but was then published simultaneously as both an adult and a children's book. I had heard a lot of good things about it and I bought it expecting it to be a sort of quirky mystery novel but it turned out to be so much more. The hero of this book is a 15 yr-old by the name of Christopher Boone. His life turns upside down when he discovers the neighbour's (Mrs. Shears) dog Wellington, murdered one night with a garden fork. He decides to take a note from Sherlock Holmes (whose stories he's fond of reading) and sets out to collect clues and facts which could help him solve this murder mystery. The thing is,
Christopher suffers from a mild form of Autism known as Asperger's Syndrome and the story is told in the first person where Christopher explains that he's writing a book about something real and that this was interesting enough to write about. The chapter alternates between events of the story with its unexpected turnabouts and between chapters which give insight to the way Christopher's mind works. Aperger's syndrome (as well as I understood) is a social behavioral disorder where a person analyzes things quite differently. He views people differently and is afraid of social situations most people take for granted. That's what makes this book so interesing. This book was funny and very touching.

I highly recommend this one.

Overall Verdict : 4/4