Reddit reviews The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries)

1. Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher -- or really, almost anything by him. Good, rich characters, facing adversity. He was a family therapist and his writing feels authentic while touching on real issues.
   
   
2. Though everyone talks (rightfully) about The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (bonus: movie coming out, starring the girl from Divergent), Paper Towns is pretty phenomenal, well developed, current, etc. For new fiction, John Green is doing about as good a job as anyone managing the YA / Adult transition, introducing tough topics with good - not intimidating - writing.
   
   
3. Soldier's Heart by Gary Paulsen is short but an amazing look at war from a young kid's perspective. A good compliment to all those fluffy (though enjoyable) we will win the war if i find my boyfriend! books that are so popular....
   
   
4. Also,The Book Thief by Zusak. Because.... for just about every reason.
   
   
5. If you think you are going to have a hard time un-sticking from the fantasy thing - The Night Circus is a creative alternative with better writing than the others.
   
   
6. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime shifted my perspective through shifting the voice -- the main character is autistic. Having this sort of unique narrator was a first & helped teach me about the role of voice (helpful, when your favorite author winds up being Faulkner...)
   
   Of course there are others (non fiction: Krakauer, Hillenbrand, come to mind; deeper: Tim O'Brien, Saramago; more fantastic: Guy Kay, Herbert, etc. ) but, trying to stay within age range / contemporary, and gender neutral... that's where I started! if any of these seem like the right thread, let me know, and i can give you a bucket more.

Books About Mental Illness:

• January First, nonfiction about childhood schizophrenia from the father's perspective
  
• Speak, about a high school freshman who develops selective mutism in order to deal with trauma
  
• Wintergirls, about eating disorders and a girl who keeps seeing her dead best friend
  
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower, about a freshman with older party animal friends and PTSD
  
• Slaughterhouse Five, where the main character develops PTSD after being involved in the bombing of Dresden, but thinks he's become unstuck in time, abducted by aliens, etc.
  
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, about an autistic teenager who tries to solve a mystery with his own brand of logic

I think voice and tone are the main markers of YA, and those are incredibly hard to nail down.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, The Ranger's Apprentice, My Sister's Keeper, Miserere, The Midwife's Apprentice, The Catcher in the Rye, the His Dark Materials trilogy, Ella Enchanted, Catherine, Called Birdy, Fangirl, the Mistborn trilogy, Girls Like Us, various Tamora Pierce books, and Incarceron are all books that could be considered YA in some markets, but not in others (some are marketed up as adult literature, others down as children's books).

If you went solely by "characters being teenagers for most of the book" to define YA, (and even threw in caveats like "coming of age" and "no explicit sex") you'd get titles like Wild Ginger, The Poisonwood Bible, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Into the Forest, or The Year of the Flood on the YA shelves, possibly disappointing a lot of people who aren't interested in such a dreary world view and often a pervading sense of melancholy (which is perhaps coming from the slower pace, even if things are happening all the time?).

Endings seem to play a role too: those adult examples were all unhappy ends that could make the characters' entire journey seem pointless. YA doesn't necessarily shy away from the unhappy ending (The Fault in Our Stars, The Girl of Fire and Thorns, and Feed come to mind), but there's always a spark of hope and the books were more upbeat up until that point.

YA doesn't necessarily shy away from cynicism or ennui and/or despair either: there was plenty of that to go around in The Hunger Games, Looking for Alaska, Graceling, Delirium, and The Archived, but those tended to be character traits coming from character voice rather than the tone of the narration itself.

Bonus MG vs YA distinction: Does he liiiiike her and maybe kiss her or marry her or are they dating or secretly lusting?

tl,dr: Gut feeling. I know it when I read it, and I don't always agree with the official designation on the spine.

*Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-tme


Because it's an amazing book, and available for like three bucks on eBay

Oh my goodness that is so generous!

I'm Moriah, and I've been an avid reader since, well, forever. I was one of this kids who got in trouble for reading long after my bed time, my mom just didn't know what to do with me! One of my all time favorite books is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I feel like I can take on the world after reading this, which is probably why my copy is falling apart!