Here is what I wrote so far(this is just my intro and body. The body is not done yet.): The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: A Novel, by Mark Haddon, is about the life of a young, arithmeticially- gifted autistic teenager named Christopher John Francis Boone; who lives in Swindon, Wiltshire. One night he discovers a dead dog, stabbed with a garden fork, of his neighbor, Mrs. Shears, and gets arrested for assualting a police officer. Christopher decides to play detective and sets out to find out who killed Wellington. But there are obstacles that will make the case hard for him to solve: he has an inability to link with others and his father orders him to keep his nose out of people's business. Also he cannot read facial expressions- this will make the case for him even harder to solve; but he understands his liabilities. His mother dies of a heart attack two years later, leaving his father, Ed Boone, child custody of his son. Christopher decides to write a book about his investigation for school, the one we read as a novel. He also prepares for his A- level math exam, which never happened in his school before. Christopher starts his detective work by asking some people in his street if they saw anyone kill Wellington or saw anything strange happening in the street on the night of Wellington's death. He finds out from his neighbor, Mrs. Alexander, that his mom Judy had an affair with Mrs. Shears husband, Mr. Shears. His father Ed finds out about Christopher's book and gets into a fight with him. In the next day, Ed apologizes to his son by taking him to the Twycross Zoo. Christopher wanted his book back because he liked writing in it; so he searched for it around his house. He discovers it in a shirt box in his father's room, and letters from his mom. He read them and finds out that his mother isn't dead but living with Mr. Shears in London, England. She ran away with Mr. Shears two years ago, incapable to care for Christopher any longer. This makes him hurt and causes to swoon. Christopher's father apologizes for lying to him that his mother his dead. He also tells him that he killed Wellington because of his stultifying beserk towards Mrs. Shears, whom he thought a romantic relationship was possible with. Christopher then gets afraid of his father, thinking that it is possible that he might get murdered himself like Wellington.So he hides in the shed that night and decides to live with his mother in London, England. With such hardship and fear, he took the train to London, flinging off the police twice along the way.However, taking the train was traumatic for him, and he nearly lost his pet rat Toby in one of the tracks. His mother gets surprised when she sees Christopher in front of her door and and gets even more surprised that he didn't think that she was dead for the whole time. *I wrote mini pieces of info as I read my book and put them together into my book report that I'm writing for school. I have to turn it in on the first day.
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1 :
'...he has an inability to link with others' would work better as "he has difficulty socializing with others" "Christopher decides to write a book about his investigation for school, the one we read as a novel." - everything after that, I think you should just delete and rewrite. This is a book report, so you're allowed to generalize things - getting too much into detail, explaining every scene gets too tedious for the reader. If you just write about the events that really impacted him; like when he runs to his mother because he's afraid of his father, going underground for the first time, and then some character insight, you'll be fine. I think you should really write about the relationship between Christopher and his parents somewhere in the middle, too. I adore this book, it's definitely one of my top five. Great choice for a book report.
2 :
There are a few grammar problems (run ons, cut offs, awkward wording in general), and using spell check is a good idea! The first time you introduce a character, it should be by name, comma, identification (or the other way around). I agree with the other reviewer that anything after the first paragraph should be rewritten. You really need to look at the most traumatizing moments for Christopher on his journey, the beginning (finding the dog), the climax, and the resolution. His autism is a major theme of this book, which you also need to look at-- his quirks, how it affects his vision of the world in relation to other children his age.
