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A Spot of Bother

3.45 of 5 stars 3.45 · rating details · 16,922 ratings · 2,141 reviews

George Hall is an unobtrusive man. A little distant, perhaps, a little cautious, not quite at ease with the emotional demands of fatherhood or of manly bonhomie. “The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.” Some things in life can’t be ignored, however: his tempestuous daughter Katie’s deeply inappropriate boyfriend Ray, for instance, o...more George Hall is an unobtrusive man. A little distant, perhaps, a little cautious, not quite at ease with the emotional demands of fatherhood or of manly bonhomie. “The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.” Some things in life can’t be ignored, however: his tempestuous daughter Katie’s deeply inappropriate boyfriend Ray, for instance, or the sudden appearance of a red circular rash on his hip.

At 57, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden and enjoying the freedom to be alone when he wants. But then he runs into a spot of bother. That red circular rash on his hip: George convinces himself it’s skin cancer. And the deeply inappropriate Ray? Katie announces he will become her second husband. The planning for these frowned-upon nuptials proves a great inconvenience to George’s wife, Jean, who is carrying on a late-life affair with her husband’s ex-colleague. The Halls do not approve of Ray, for vague reasons summed up by their son Jamie’s observation that Ray has “strangler’s hands.” Jamie himself has his own problems — his tidy and pleasant life comes apart when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to Katie’s wedding. And Katie, a woman whose ferocious temper once led to the maiming of a carjacker, can’t decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob.

Unnoticed in the uproar, George quietly begins to go mad. The way these damaged people fall apart — and come together — as a family is the true subject of Haddon’s hilarious and disturbing portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.

A Spot of Bother is Mark Haddon’s unforgettable follow-up to the internationally beloved bestseller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Once again, Haddon proves a master of a story at once hilarious, poignant, dark, and profoundly human. Here the madness — literally — of family life proves rich comic fodder for Haddon’s crackling prose and bittersweet insights into misdirected love.

From the Hardcover edition.(less)

Hardcover, 354 pages

Published September 5th 2006 by Doubleday

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Dec 22, 2007 Patrick rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: no one

I pretty much hated this book. It was the type of book that you read because you liked the author's other work, but it's so aggressively bad that it makes you reconsider whether or not you actually liked the author's previous work upon closer consideration.

So what was so bad about it? Well, for the one the characters simply didn't ring true. They all felt poorly sketched out, just a bunch of people having what Haddon would have you believe are constant epiphanies about their sad little lives. He...more I pretty much hated this book. It was the type of book that you read because you liked the author's other work, but it's so aggressively bad that it makes you reconsider whether or not you actually liked the author's previous work upon closer consideration.

So what was so bad about it? Well, for the one the characters simply didn't ring true. They all felt poorly sketched out, just a bunch of people having what Haddon would have you believe are constant epiphanies about their sad little lives. He writes in such a way that you can tell he wants the reader to think it's a stunning revelation that this character is having, when it's just another dull moment in a rather dull story. If I had a dollar for every time Haddon made a one sentence paragraph meant to reveal some larger truth about the character's personalities, I'd be a rich man. He also has a nasty habit of ending each "chapter" (there are well over 100 of them, most 2 pages or less) with some half-assed "cliff-hanger", something better suited to the James Pattersons and R.L. Stines of the world.

Haddon doesn't seem to understand his characters, and he doesn't seem to care to, either. He simply throws a jumble of people into awkward situations and has them (over)react like a bunch of unlikeable, selfish jerks and then comment to themselves that, perhaps, they are acting like unlikeable, selfish jerks who are overreacting to what are, in reality, fairly mundane situations. They're sad, selfish little people, yet Haddon seems to think they are endearing.

Finally, he ends the book fairly abruptly and with a neat little bow on top that doesn't suit it. Everything works out for everyone involved, yet no one seemed to learn anything or grow as people. They all ended exactly where they began with no growth whatsoever. I've heard people who are familiar with autism claim that Haddon's sketch of the child in 'A Curious Incident of the Dog in the NightTime' was actually woefully inaccurate and quite offensive, and seeing the way he handles his characters' problems in this story, I'm much more inclined to believe that. Just an awful, awful book. Haddon seems to think he's writing a British version of 'The Corrections', but he's painfully mistaken. I'll probably not read anything by Haddon again.(less)

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Mar 01, 2010 Kaion rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: humor, contemporary, lgbt

A Spot of Bother is an alternating-POV story about going quietly mad and loudly sane, and love under all our layers of repression and confusion: There’s newly-retired dad George, politely failing to bury his increasing obsessive thoughts of mortality under a zest for home renovations. Mom Jean, already balancing familial duty and work and volunteering, is just trying to find more time for her passionate affair with a long-time acquaintance. Their outspoken grown-up daughter Katie intends to marr...more A Spot of Bother is an alternating-POV story about going quietly mad and loudly sane, and love under all our layers of repression and confusion: There’s newly-retired dad George, politely failing to bury his increasing obsessive thoughts of mortality under a zest for home renovations. Mom Jean, already balancing familial duty and work and volunteering, is just trying to find more time for her passionate affair with a long-time acquaintance. Their outspoken grown-up daughter Katie intends to marry her boyfriend Ray despite her suspicion that he’s wrong for her— because he’s right for her son. And emotionally-distant son Jamie just can’t explain to his boyfriend why he’s not invited to the wedding.

Haddon’s style is pretty sparse, but earnest. The characters’ dramas could easily become trite, but their awareness and wryness in the face of their situations instead lends an endearing realness. At times I almost felt a little cheated that the split narratives, by necessity, truncated the fuller version of each story. But even with the glimpses, I got a sense that each Hall lived in a world beyond just the necessary set pieces, full of friends and coworkers and exes—of complex relationships—a specificity that allowed me to be drawn into their struggles in spite of myself. The strongest parts of the novel are actually when the family members directly interact. We get to “see” the same events in their overlapping voices, which surprised me by highlighting the complexities of intention and communication (rather than falling into tedious exercise).

If you’ve ever seen one of these comedies, it’s hardly a surprise that all these threads erupt into a madcap ending. I think some readers might find George’s central story kind of crass and shocking and inexplicable at times. I sort of wished Haddon was less enigmatic about it, especially being the subject that was probably the hardest to comprehend or relate to. But real life is not tied up so easily.

And so when all the dust settled, I found myself left with some heartwarming end scenes and some open end scenes… but most of all, the overall sense of empathy for the ways people try to make sense out of the chaos.

(Reread April 2012: Nothing to add of insight, except to note poor Mark Haddon, doomed to forever have his work as "not as good as his first novel Curious Incident. Well those people are wrong. A Spot of Bothers's comedy of manners is just as accessible, and it shows more maturity regarding character development and less reliance on the so-called cute gimmicks he's been accused of propogating. I'm sure I've saved him from crying into buckets of money now, so this reread has gone to good cause.)(less)

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Jan 29, 2009 jo rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: linda

Shelves: great-britain, psychic-pain, queer, the-body

i don't know why people who've read the curious incident of the dog in the night-time would find this second novel a let-down. it seems to me equally tender, sweet, and heartbreaking. it's also hilariously funny. haddon does heartbreaking and funny with such grace, simplicity, and verbal virtuosity, it's wonderful. i admire this writer greatly.

what i admire most about him is that he shows us the behavior of "crazy" people who do "crazy" things from the inside, and from the inside these crazy th...more i don't know why people who've read the curious incident of the dog in the night-time would find this second novel a let-down. it seems to me equally tender, sweet, and heartbreaking. it's also hilariously funny. haddon does heartbreaking and funny with such grace, simplicity, and verbal virtuosity, it's wonderful. i admire this writer greatly.

what i admire most about him is that he shows us the behavior of "crazy" people who do "crazy" things from the inside, and from the inside these crazy things make total sense. george's shenanigans are as meaningful and entirely understandable to us as christopher's shenanigans, and, just like in the first novel, we are quite surprised that people around these two should not be more compassionate and understanding, because both george and christopher seem lost in an earnest, brave, broken, and entirely adorable way.

there's a lot here about class, and i imagine other non-english people might find it as hard to make sense of as i did. i mean, ray seems absolutely perfect from all possible points of view, as does tony, but the stuff of class gets in the way tremendously, and one is left quite perplexed until one remembers what one has learned about england from the movies, and it makes a little more sense.

the little kid jacob is picture perfect. haddon has a thing with little kids (of all ages).

another thing that haddon does really really well is show how people like george and christopher, i.e. people who either are different or become different at some point in their lives for some very painful reason, manage to break down barriers and distances in others that would otherwise be as immutable and untouchable as the rotation of the planets. and then everyone feels better.

except there is hell to pay, for everyone, and this is the really heartbreaking part, the amount of pain haddon packs in his books. i was discussing this just now with someone and realized that the highest common denominator between dog and bother is terror. and i don't do terror very well. but this book eases you into terror gently, and by the time you realize that the book is killing you you are too caught up to stop reading it.

anyway, i really liked this book. it doesn't dispel the terror, or maybe it doesn't do so entirely, but it might make you feel like you are not the only one to live in a constant state of terror, and that's a little soothing unto itself. (less)

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Jennifer (aka EM) jo wrote: "what i admire most about him is that he shows us the behavior of "crazy" people who do "crazy" things from the inside, and from the inside...more
Jan 29, 2009 07:42pm

jo Eccentric Muse wrote: "For me (and I'm going on a shaky memory now), I didn't think he managed as well as in Curious full character development. Chris...more
Jan 29, 2009 08:00pm

Jennifer (aka EM) I do like george!! those scenes two of the strongest in the book, yes.

The daughter, whose name I now forget, I recall being a bit of a mystery. Her mo...more
updated Jan 31, 2009 10:34am

Aug 04, 2010 Uci rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's like rain in your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's a good advice that you just didn't take
and who would've thought...it figures
Ironic by Alanis Morisette

George Hall menjalani hidupnya tanpa neko-neko. Menikah, punya anak, punya rumah dan pekerjaan yang bagus, pokoknya segala hal yang sepatutnya dimiliki lelaki baik-baik. Namun memasuki masa pensiun, tiba-tiba berbagai masalah menjungkirbalikkan hidupnya yang sempurna. Putrinya Katie akan melangsungkan pernikahan kedu...more It's like rain in your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's a good advice that you just didn't take
and who would've thought...it figures
Ironic by Alanis Morisette

George Hall menjalani hidupnya tanpa neko-neko. Menikah, punya anak, punya rumah dan pekerjaan yang bagus, pokoknya segala hal yang sepatutnya dimiliki lelaki baik-baik. Namun memasuki masa pensiun, tiba-tiba berbagai masalah menjungkirbalikkan hidupnya yang sempurna. Putrinya Katie akan melangsungkan pernikahan kedua dengan lelaki yang menurut George dan Jean, istrinya, tidak selevel dengan Katie. Putra mereka Jamie akan membawa pacarnya Tony ke pernikahan tersebut, yang membuat George terpaksa harus mulai menerima kenyataan bahwa Jamie adalah seorang gay. Sebentuk daging tiba-tiba muncul di pinggul George, membuatnya depresi karena takut mati terserang kanker. Dan puncaknya, Jean berselingkuh dengan mantan rekan sekantor George. George pun mulai bertanya-tanya, apakah selama ini dia telah menyia-nyiakan waktunya, dengan tidak melakukan hal-hal yang disukainya, demi mengejar hidup yang aman. Sementara pernikahan putrinya sudah semakin dekat...

Rusuhnya persiapan pernikahan memang menarik dijadikan bahan cerita. Sejumlah film yang pernah saya tonton juga mengangkat tema serupa, seperti Father of the Bride, My Bestfriend's Wedding, Rachel Getting Married, dll. Walaupun tidak persis sama, tapi benang merahnya adalah berbagai masalah yang timbul menjelang hari pernikahan. Mungkin karena acara pernikahan sering kali menguras tenaga dan emosi, sehingga rawan mengundang pertengkaran, tangisan, pertemuan, pelarian, atau malah perpisahan.

Itu sebabnya meskipun dalam novel ini Mark Haddon masih punya 'daya magis' untuk menyihir pembaca seperti saya tetap terpaku menyimak halaman demi halaman sampai tuntas, namun tema yang diangkat tidak seunik The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Di buku ini, Haddon sangat sabar memaparkan detail hari demi hari yang dilewati masing-masing tokoh. Ritual mandi atau makan sepulang dari kantor bisa dia jabarkan satu per satu tanpa kehilangan stamina. Bagi pembaca yang menunggu-nunggu aksi seru mungkin bisa mati bosan di tengah jalan :D Tapi untungnya Haddon masih menyisipkan lelucon-lelucon sarkastik di antara cerita, jadi cukup menghibur.

Yang jelas novel ini kembali membuat saya berpikir, apakah saya sebaiknya tetap hidup lurus-lurus saja seperti selama ini, atau mulai nekat mengejar semua yang ingin saya lakukan tapi tidak pernah berani saya lakukan? Hidup toh cuma sekali....

Hehehehehe

(less)

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Jun 23, 2008 Zerbe rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

People going into Mark Haddon's latest novel, A Spot of Bother expecting anything like his smash-hit debut, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time are going to be sorely disappointed. And rightfully so, because if Haddon had reproduced the same sort of story as he did in his first novel, we'd all be complaining about how he was such a one-trick pony. In fact, I'm glad he got the unconvential work that is The Curious Incident out of the way first, so that he can now settle himself into...more People going into Mark Haddon's latest novel, A Spot of Bother expecting anything like his smash-hit debut, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time are going to be sorely disappointed. And rightfully so, because if Haddon had reproduced the same sort of story as he did in his first novel, we'd all be complaining about how he was such a one-trick pony. In fact, I'm glad he got the unconvential work that is The Curious Incident out of the way first, so that he can now settle himself into what he really wants to do (and ultimately does anyway in The Curious Incident): study people.

One of my coworkers asked me if what I was reading was a detective novel. I'm not sure how they came to such an assumption (I don't have a pronounced taste for crime fiction, that I know of at least). I suppose there is an outside chance that they were familiar with Haddon's first book and made the assumption, but if that is true, I'd like to put a million dollars on the Pirates to win the World Series this year. But when they asked me about what kind of novel A Spot of Bother was, I said, "It's kind of a character study, about this guy who is having a mental breakdown." That guy is the main character, retired playground equipment salesman and constructor George Hall, who has found a lesion on his leg and convinces himself it is cancer, allowing his sanity to slowly crumble to dust.

This is the catalyst that sends the story initially into motion, but George's friends and family are all major players as well, and their characters are warped and molded and nurtured throughout the novel with masterful strokes. From George's wife to his children to his former colleagues, we are introduced to a sweeping cast who each exist within their own world of insanities. If anything, the characters are too painfully accurate--more than once I was brought to boil over their attempts to avoid reality. George in particular is seemingly afraid of everything and makes bone-headed decisions out of his fears. For awhile I was mad at Haddon for making George so unbelievably scared to go to the doctor about his lesion, until I remembered my great uncle who lives in a house that is literally falling in on itself (think the Lisbon House after the first suicide, only scarier) who hasn't been to a doctor since the 1980s despite hardly being able to get around the house in his deteriorating health. Oh, and he still drives too. But it reminded me that people really are that paranoid and that just because I would go to the doctor in an instant if I were convinced I had cancer, others would shy away worse than before and retreat into their own cracked psyche.

A Spot of Bother really takes on a lot (both in story and in philosophy) and comes out amazingly successful. A lot of critics have said it missed its mark, that it is boring and doesn't live up to his debut, but these are absolutely the same people who would be skinning him if he'd done another book with clip art on every page. If they'd take the time to actually think about the two novels, they'd realize that there are more similarities than differences. Haddon wants to see what his characters can take, so he pushes them into situations and let's them spiral out of control and captures whatever he can from that flaming trail. At the heart of both A Spot of Bother and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, that is what the story focuses on. With his latest work, he just does so in a more traditional but much more all-encompassing way.

In just two novels, Mark Haddon has proven his impressive range, all the while remaining focused on what he ultimately wants to achieve in his writing. I'm excited to see what he does next. Hopefully, whatever it is, it will have a better paperback cover than A Spot of Bother though. Seriously. I waited so long to buy this to see if I could get a second edition but then just couldn't put it off any more and had to settle. This has to be one of my least favorite book covers of any that I own. Alas.(less)

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Jan 22, 2008 Kirsten rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Kirsten by: NPR

A very entertaining and intelligent "page-turner", which is a rare combination of traits. As a story told from four well-written viewpoints, it succeeds in evoking an emotional connection with the characters. But I worry about too much modern fiction presenting the literary equivalent of short serial television episodes all jumbled together in something described as a novel.

I suppose readers' attention spans are becoming shorter, but should fiction really cater to that fact? There is definitely...more

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Sep 27, 2007 Joe rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Ilse

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...more 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.(less)

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Jul 06, 2008 Pierce rated it 1 of 5 stars

As we approach the end of my first year of recorded and reviewed reading, I have read almost no bad books. The Fermata was bad, but the guy could write, he just decided to write something we all thought was fucking awful.

This was a bad book.

Oh how do I hate this book? Let me count the ways:

1) Every word in this novel is written in conversational, lazy prose. "Absolutely" is used repeatedly for emphasis. "Cue" something or other. The kind of verbal junk we are all guilty of in verbal conversation...more As we approach the end of my first year of recorded and reviewed reading, I have read almost no bad books. The Fermata was bad, but the guy could write, he just decided to write something we all thought was fucking awful.

This was a bad book.

Oh how do I hate this book? Let me count the ways:

1) Every word in this novel is written in conversational, lazy prose. "Absolutely" is used repeatedly for emphasis. "Cue" something or other. The kind of verbal junk we are all guilty of in verbal conversation, but letting it form the bulk of your novel is unforgivable. I felt like I was reading a second-year English essay. Honest to god, I'm not exaggerating. Junk prose. Never a hint of an interesting sentence structure.

2) This device, used repeatedly, I'm guessing to give the novel some appearance of depth. Let's call it the Family Guy Device. "The day was turning out badly. Almost as badly as that barbecue with David Morris and Bettie Constance in Salford last summer, thought George." STOP RANDOMLY FUCKING DROPPING NAMES I'VE NEVER HEARD BEFORE AND WON'T HEAR AGAIN. There's enough one-dimensional characters to keep track of without my having to check off new names against the list every two chapters. I can't tell you how many times this was used in the course of 500 pages.

3) 500 PAGES? To tell this story? Are you kidding me?

4) The relentless assault of pop-culture references. Lethal Weapon, The 6th Sense, The Lord of the Rings, BBC Radio 4. Wedding music is "that Bach Double Violin piece from the compilation CD Dad gave her from Christmas last year." And it's not just the pop-culture bits (Oscar Wao was full of Lord of the Rings stuff), it's that they are brought up again and again and again, but not one character betrays any interest that dips below to most shallow and obvious cultural stables. It felt like examples of tastes were deliberately chosen so that no reader would ever miss a reference. These people, is seems, are the most banal people you have ever met.

5) 500 FUCKING PAGES?

Picture a wet Sunday afternoon, and you are spending it at a slightly run-down shopping centre in the outskirts of town. You check out the record store, but whoever's stocked their shelved has decided to focus on boy-bands and Nickelback and club-anthem compilations. The book-shop is full of ugly, glossy cookbooks and footballer biographies. You glance into the clothes shops but the mannequins all look like the men you feel most uncomfortable around in the pub at weekends. You go to the cafeteria to kill some time, and sit under bright fluorescent lighting at grey plastic tables and eat a bun seemingly made out of another kind of plastic. The tea is tepid and has an oily film on its surface.

And it's not the afternoon you're experiencing in this place, it's the people around you, when you realise that even if you asked them, they wouldn't see what's wrong with this. They wouldn't understand your problem.
This novel was a 500 page trek through everything that tires and disappoints me most about the modern world, and I'm sorry if that illuminates some fault in me and not the novel, but that's the way I feel.(less)

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Jan 23, 2008 Seth Hahne rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookclub

I'm not really sure what to say about this one. I really can't generate strong feelings one way or another on its behalf. It wasn't bad but it wasn't good - and conversely, it wasn't good but it wasn't bad. It had likable moments and parts that I laughed at. And some of Haddon's descriptions were priceless (e.g., the "chickeny scrotum" bit). But then there was the rest of it. I kept feeling that if it was either good or bad, I would have relished finishing it so that I could relish talking about...more

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Apr 01, 2007 Leonora rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was much better than I thought it would be. I found myself drawn into it unlike other novels which lately don't seem to hold my interest.

The writing style is completely different from "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" which was refreshing. He showed ability in this book to write a normal, even typical, story.

What drew me in was the same thing that drew me to Herman Hesse. He uncannily describes emotions that I've felt on almost every page. Hesse does that brilliant...more

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Aug 24, 2008 Susan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Hilarious!!!! What a wonderful story, that kept me laughing the whole time. Haddon does a wonderful job giving his characters life. It made me wonder what I'll be like when I retire will I be as crazy and eccentric as the main character.

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May 27, 2012 Stephanie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have owned this book for such a long time. I picked it up after reading (and loving) The Curious Incident.... Somehow, though, I've never gotten around to reading it. In my new effort to find a good balance between library books and books collecting dust on my shelves, I decided to try the audio version. I've been having a lot of luck with audio books lately and this is no exception. I like the narrator and it is turing out to be quite a good pick for audio. I don't have the audio cds--I am tr...more

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Dec 15, 2007 Lila rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: any adult

First the quibbles: Haddon's a young guy. He has a young guy's perspective, which is to say, a limited perspective. His portrayals of the middle-aged are in places laughable. Mark, I've got to tell you: people over fifty don't think the world belongs to the young. They don't think they're obsolete. It's young people who think that about their elders. Youngsters are often (not always) better at the very latest technology, but that's their only advantage. Well, that, and the good health they take...more

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Oct 23, 2007 Jessica Baxter rated it 4 of 5 stars

oh i loved this! haddon induces the same empathy for these characters as he did for the boy in curious incident, which is a much harder task considering that these characters are just flawed self-absorbed adults and not children suffering from mental illness. by flawed self-absorbed adults i of course mean me and you. he has a remarkable talent for dialogue and delivery, which is, to me, the trickiest thing to do well. you dont want to put it down, and you dont want it to end, and you so badly w...more

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Aug 20, 2007 Brynn rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Jihan

Shelves: summer2007

"Talking was, in George's opinion, overrated. You could not turn the television on these days without seeing someone discussing their adoption or explaining why they had stabbed their husband. Not that he was averse to talking. Talking was one of life's pleasures. And everyone needed to sound off now and then over a pint of Ruddles about colleagues who did not shower frequently enough, or teenage sons who had returned home drunk in the small hours and thrown up in the dog's basket. But it did no...more

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Jun 03, 2007 Trin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, english-lit

Okay, here's how this breaks down:

Book about a real-life serial killer
Trin: I think I'll read this my first night in a strange, new apartment, in an unfamiliar neighborhood, when I'm all alone, and almost all the lights are off! La la la!

Book featuring one plot thread about a man's slow descent into madness, including a scene of botched self-surgery
Trin: *hides under the bed* *whimpers*

Yeah. I found this novel very hard to get through—which, if anything, should I suppose be a compliment to Haddo...more

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Mar 15, 2008 Neesha rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary-lit

Although I can see why certain fans don't like this one as much as Haddon's first book, I liked it just as well. It has the same flavor as the first, but with multiple main characters instead of just one. Mark Haddon still does a fantastic job of showing rather than telling in terms of his characters--he really has a wonderful way of letting the reader get inside the characters' heads. I think that was part of what made his first novel great, and he has held onto that in this one. What made this...more

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Jan 26, 2009 Lucie rated it 2 of 5 stars

if you can get past the first 200 pages, this turns out to be a vaguely compelling read. but really, getting through the 1st 200 pages of someone's book, just for the remaining 80 pages isn't my idea of a fun time. if only it was a nice little novella or short story! it ultimately was an ok experience for me, just lacks the charm & focus of haddon's earlier lovely CURIOUS CASE...too bad!

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Sep 07, 2008 Kristen rated it 2 of 5 stars

Although this was enjoyable enough to read, I was still fairly disappointed in it, even taking into account the fact that I didn't expect too much out of it in the first place (for self-preservational reasons, since Haddon's first novel is one of my favorites). See, it turns out that the detached, observational tone of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, which I thought worked so brilliantly for that book's narrator, is actually just the way Haddon writes. All the time. Even though...more

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Jan 22, 2009 Patrick Tobin rated it 1 of 5 stars

I suspect this novel was whipped up to fulfill the second book of the author's deal with the publisher -- and given the phenomenal success of the author's first book, the publisher went ahead with it. "A Spot Of Bother" lacks any of the precision and warmth and surprise of "A Curious..." Chapters read like outlines jotted down in a notebook. Hypochondriac dad: check. Philandering mother: check. Bitch sister: check. Gay brother: check.

The book only comes alive -- briefly, and then slips back int...more

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Apr 17, 2007 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Mark Haddon writes of a middle-aged man named George Hall, who is struggling with retirement, his gay son and his boyfriend, his daughter announcing a man he doesn't like, and his wife, who is having an affair with his ex-colleague. Because of all of this, George begins to lose it.

The story revolves around each of the characters, told from the 3rd person omniscient, weaving their problems and thoughts around one another. The book is extremely engaging and I found myself immediately drawn in eac...more

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Oct 22, 2008 Bookmaniac70 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: good-books

I got a liking for this book from the first page. At first glance,we have an ordinary family story- a daughter who wants to marry the wrong man (or at least her parents think so), a homosexual son who has just splitted with his boyfriend, a wife who is guilty of adultery,and a husband who is going mad. George is one of the most interesting characters in the novel. Haddon has managed to convey brilliantly the sense of inner destruction, panic and obsession with the fear of dying. Like in "A curio...more

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Oct 03, 2012 Debby rated it 1 of 5 stars

OK, I really liked Haddon's book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, so I thought I'd give A Spot of Bother a try, hoping for a good read about a quirky family. Let's just say quirky got annoying pretty quickly. The only character I liked and wanted to read about was the husband/father had a really bad case of catastrophizing OCD. He was hilarious and pitiful at the same time. Unfortunately his character just couldn't get me really interested in the rest of this highly dysfunction...more

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Dec 08, 2007 Beth rated it 3 of 5 stars

"A Spot of Bother" is a perfectly enjoyable book about the Halls, a typical middle-class British family, and all their neuroses, foibles, prejudices and the sensitivities of the parent-child relationship. In a way, it reminded me of The Corrections; however, it is far funnier and I found the characters far more likeable. This is not the best book I have ever read, but since it is the first Mark Haddon book I have read ("The Curious Incident..." has seem to have gone curiously missing in our hous...more

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Dec 16, 2008 Angela rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2008

Dear Budding Indie Film-maker,

I know how tempted you are to turn this quirky little book into a quirky little movie. You've mentally cast James Cromwell as the family patriarch who's sure the excema on his leg is actually cancer. You know just how the camera will close in on the faces of the actors as they make realizations that will change their life.

And you're really looking forward to filming some of the genuinely sweet and funny scenes, knowing the audience will roar with laughter while wipi...more

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Nov 27, 2008 Chrissy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Chrissy by: My grandmother, my friend Paul

In Mark Haddon's second novel, he paints us a portrait of a family in England for whom everything is fine on the surface, but there are actually lots of underlying issues that nobody feels comfortable talking about. Thus, they all avoid the important topics with one another while the head of the family goes quietly insane without anyone noticing until he's well on his way to completely losing his mind. The author showcases his interest in mental illness and disorder in a different way than he di...more

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May 16, 2013 marg rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have enjoyed Haddon progressively more since the Curious Incident book, though I see I am in the minority. A Spot of Bother was by far the most enjoyable, walking a line between tragedy and comedy in a finer way than most authors can pull off.
We are pulled into the zany world of middle aged Dad who has seen a spot (hence the pun) on his hip and is now convinced that he is dying of cancer which sends him into a tail spin of anxiety and insanity, Mom Jean who is having an affair with a former co...more

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May 07, 2013 Bjorn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My opinion of Haddon from The Curious Incident... is pretty much intact: ho-hum. Bother is a quick read for 375 pages, there's quite a few chuckles and even one or two pretty poignant things about love and aging (though it hammers the fear-of-your-body-decaying theme into the ground without ever coming close to the poignancy of, say, Philip Roth's Everyman). Problem is it's just so incredibly predictable. Once we've gotten to know the characters (hypochondriac father, philandering mother, gay so...more

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Jan 28, 2013 S rated it 4 of 5 stars

I found this book on a shelf of a condo we had rented up in the mountains this past week and picked it up because I recognized the author who also wrote "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the night time" which I remember enjoying.

I enjoyed this book even more and laughed out loud in certain parts. It is written in a very English tone which I mean that he describes people acting very badly but they are just so proper and reserved about it that it is quite humorous.

The story is about a man, Georg...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Matt rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I loved The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. This was not The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. This was the dysfunctional family slice of life novel - Franzen's The Corrections, Smith's On Beauty, etc - but not quite so damn depressing. I think Haddon has a gift; his observations ring astute (though what do I know of middle/old age?), his dialogue stays solid, and his character arcs are as real as they are zany.

[3.5 stars for the power of people, for not being at all...more

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About Mark Haddon

Mark Haddon is a British novelist and poet, best known for his 2003 novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. He was educated at Uppingham School and Merton College, Oxford, where he studied English.

In 2003, Haddon won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and in 2004, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Overall Best First Book for his novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-t...more

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Books by Mark Haddon

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea: Poems

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“And it occurred to him that there were two parts to being a better person. One part was thinking about other people. The other part was not giving a toss what other people thought.” — 76 people liked it

“You love someone, you've got to let something go.” — 38 people liked it

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