Review : Me & Mr Darcy and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Me and Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Summary: After a string of disastrous dates, Emily Albright decides she’s had it with modern-day love and would much rather curl up with Pride and Prejudice and spend her time with Mr. Darcy, the dashing, honorable, and passionate hero of Jane Austen’s classic. So when her best friend suggests a wild week of margaritas and men in Mexico with the girls, Emily abruptly flees to England on a guided tour of Jane Austen country instead. Far from inspiring romance, the company aboard the bus consists of a gaggle of little old ladies and one single man, Spike Hargreaves, a foul-tempered journalist writing an article on why the fictional Mr. Darcy has earned the title of Man Most Women Would Love to Date. 

The last thing Emily expects to find on her excursion is a broodingly handsome man striding across a field, his damp shirt clinging to his chest. But that’s exactly what happens when she comes face-to-face with none other than Mr. Darcy himself. Suddenly, every woman’s fantasy becomes one woman’s reality. . . 

I really want to really, really like it. But it was not to be. Also at first I was irritated by the heroine spinelessness. I can forgive a spineless woman if she's young, but she's almost 30. Sigh.

Anyway, it started ok enough. It never explains how Emily (the heroine) manage to meet Mr Darcy. It just happened. But I guess an explanation would not really be explainable.

It got better at the end when Emily found her spine, but I'll enjoy it more if it does not try to parallel a lot of the plots to Pride and Prejudice. While it does this intentionally and brought it up to the reader attention, I really wish the writer had gone another way.

Overall it was ok. Funny at the times. Mr Darcy is painted even as a tad bit ludicrous. Midnight meet ups? It was unseemly to even go out walking in broad daylight without a chaperone in that time! But I manage to have a few chuckles so it is not a total loss. Funny at times, unbelievable at times, but it was enjoyable, hence the 3 stars.


The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Summary: Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is autistic. Everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. Routine, order and predictability shelter him from the messy, wider world. Then, at fifteen, Christopher’s carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbor’s dog, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork, and he is initially blamed for the killing.Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer and turns to his favorite fictional character, the impeccably logical Sherlock Holmes, for inspiration.

This is my first book by Mark Haddon. It was as in the review being printed at my book .. " A stunningly good read". The narrator of this story is an autistic boy who don't and never will understand people who are not like him works, think, feel. So the story is narrated in a cold way, much like reading facts off a textbook. However the writer inject humanity in it by Christopher observation on how the people around him react.

I thought I would be bored. I never was, in fact I may have learned things by reading this book. This is a book about a boy. A dysfunctional boy who maybe understand how dysfunctional he is, but never really do understand just how so. It is about family and trust. It is basically about him finding a reason on this little mystery he encountered upon.

It is not a typical narrating, but it was interesting. It makes for a surprisingly fast read. I can't recommend it enough. I am now looking forward for more books by this author.

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