After seeing so many BookCrossers rave about this one I decided to get my own copy - and when I happened across this nicely-discounted trade-paperback edition at Costco I pounced. Stay tuned...

I really enjoyed this book! I had no idea it would go the way it did; I'd only heard about the "boy finds dead dog, tries to solve mystery" aspect, but this story manages to be both realistic and surprising. Seeing the world through Christopher's eyes was fascinating, sometimes pathetic and often scary; and funny, too, as when he discusses metaphors: "I think that it [a metaphor] should be called a lie because a pig is not like a day and people do not have skeletons in their cupboards. And when I try and make a picture of the phrase in my head it just confuses me because imagining an apple in someone's eye doesn't have anything to do with liking someone a lot and it makes you forget what the person was talking about." I note that Terry Pratchett's character, Death, also refers to metaphors as lies, so Christopher is in good company...

Even though the book was in Christopher's words it also conveyed how he disturbing he could be to others; much of the pathos of the story came from this, as I empathized with him and with the person who was terrified to encounter him standing in her yard in the dark. And then when - but that would be spoiling it. I was delighted that nobody'd spoiled the story for me so I won't say any more; but this is a very good book indeed.

Controlled release:

I've given this to my sister in New York, who was interested in reading it for a parent/child book group she's participating in. [I've also acquired an audio version via the Audible.com site and am looking forward to hearing the story. ***Update: the audio version, read by Jeff Woodman, is excellent; strongly recommended!]