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Having read Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, I expected my sophomore foray into Haddon's style of novel-writing to be a bit of a departure. If you don't know already the book was written from the point-of-view of a boy with Asperger's Syndrome (a functional form of Autism) and delivered with a fair amount of empathy that warmed the reader to an otherwise antisocial and charmless character.

However, I felt that even from an omniscient point-of-view, Haddon hardly piqued my personal interest in any of the central players in this book. It's written in a matter-of-fact style that hearkens back to that of Curious but fails to deliver a real story. The jacket hinted that the hero would be George, a retired father and cuckold with a nagging topical infirmity but my mind wandered so often that I found it far more interesting to read the book as though the protagonist was the tension between each of the family members centered around him. (Try this - it was actually more fascinating than trying to patiently wait for a real story). The bottom line is that the novel goes nowhere while switching from character to character where the writer may or may not be attempting to impress the reader with his gift for communing with unrelated elements of human discord. In other words, English people are boring. This may not be the case but the book makes a strong argument to the contrary.

On the positive side, he does seamlessly transition between voices throughout the book with some alacrity and I do think he has a penchant for delivering a fitting description of what one's state of mind is in the most mundane of circumstances. I was also impressed by how well he wrote without using a cliché chain of simile after simile. Again, this is another symptom of my mind wandering from lack of interest but I am fond of writers who can deliver their craft without a notepad full of brilliant adjective phrases right next to the computer.

In any case, I would still recommend taking a look at it if you read Curious and plan to keep tabs on Haddon's evolution from writing children's books. As for me, put on the spot, I may not bother.