When I first started this book I absolutely hated it. Hated it, hated it, hated it. It was to the point that I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to make myself read anything further.
I gave it a second try, and to my shock, I am absolutely insane about it. I love it now! It’s funny how such a strong opinion can flip-flop so suddenly and strongly, but it sure did for me. I was thinking about this and wondering why, and then my mind drifted and I started thinking about the book. Suddenly I realized- I had already read this book before! Not this book, exactly, but read a similar story told in the same style and narrative voice, with the same textual and graphic experimentations. The name of this book is “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”, by Mark Haddon.
This book features an autistic boy who goes across London superficially trying to solve the mystery of his his neighbor’s murdered dog, but deep down he is really driven by the death of his mother and is trying to reconcile that trauma. His search takes him around England as he is conducting interviews with adults who, incidentally, do not take him very seriously. Much like Oskar, he is funny and supremely intelligent, and struggles with socializing with people his own age. Both share a fascination with numbers and little-known facts. The writing style in both books are very psychological as well. The narrative voice are also very similar. Additionally, Haddon plays with images and graphs and experiments with text exactly like Soer did.
The two books are so alike that I would be honestly, genuinely shocked if Jonathan had not read “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”. It was very popular and acclaimed, won many awards, and was published two years before Soer’s book came out, so its very likely that he did read it.
If my hypothesis is right and Soer is imitating Haddon’s style, either by accident or on purpose, this is irritating to me for several reasons. First of all, I think Haddon’s book is so brilliant that it is insulting to even try to imitate his style. Secondly, I feel as though this book could be wonderful on its own, without parroting Haddon’s style. Finally, as an English major, I’m not a big fan of anyone copying another writer’s idea.
I really hope someone else has read this book and now notices similarities too, because its driving me crazy!