On rare occasions, I stumble upon a novel that hits me in a way I didn't fully expect. I think this is relatively famous, as I first stumbled on this in a bookstore over 10 years ago and read the first 20 pages or so then. I always intended to get back to it but for whatever reason, other things kept coming up. 
 But as luck would have it, I had ruined my back last weekend. Like, I don't know what happened, because all I was doing was bending over in my yard to pick something up, and something weird happened. 
 One of my legs felt numb, but back hurt too bad to really do anything (except moan... moaning I could do and not feel any worse) and even my neck and shoulders were sort of blindingly painful. 
 And like any good man would do. I whined about it, a lot. Every hour or so I felt it was really important to let my wife know how much pain I was in. I mean, she didn't look like she felt that sorry for me, so I assume it's because she didn't understand the depths of my suffering. After all, what has she ever experienced to compare this with - childbirth? 
 That was an attempt at self-effacing sarcasm, just to be clear. 
 Anyway, the missus wanted to take the one-hour trip to visit family because someone else that is close to the family has been diagnosed with a pretty poor prognosis. Lots of people are very upset. 
 My back, though, it really hurt. I told her that I really wanted to give my moral support, but I couldn't so much as move. I wasn't going anywhere. 
 Wow. This story is getting long, or at least longer than I intended it to be. So, she said we could pick up a book from the bookstore on the way if I wanted. 
 Oh yeah. I think I can manage. So we went. But unfortunately, all my man-crying aside, I was legitimately in a lot of pain. I couldn't browse the store. I just wanted out. There was an endcap of book recommendations by staff and this was there. I remembered it from 10 years prior and that was good enough for me. 
 "Get me that," I said. And I went out to the vehicle, put the seat down, and rested until the missus finished up inside. 
 Well, to dispense with all the drama, I eventually felt better, and decided to read this while I was taking a break from a beta read I'm doing for a friend's novel (it's something like 750 pages long... it's not the sort of thing you can do quickly, at least not if you're trying to do it well) and I didn't want a whole week away from the beta read, so I figured this little thing could get read in a day or so. 
 Again, wow. I feel like I'm one of those people that when they die, people will come to my home and find I had 200 journals scattered all over my house that detailed my bowel movements for the past 30 years or something. That was boring to even write. So sorry. 
 And now, this book. It's about an autistic boy that is trying to solve the murder of his neighbor's dog. It's the first person POV that really lets me, the reader, dig deep into what's going on inside the kid's head. 
 I don't have any idea if this is a relatively accurate portrayal of someone coping with autism (I'm assuming that's what it is - I don't recall this being specifically mentioned in the novel) but it certainly felt like it to someone like me, which means someone that has zero practical experience with the condition. 
 So, it may be a stinking pile of dogshit, in which case, my ignorance makes me the perfect audience, because it worked on me. 
 Then again, if it is a good window into the soul of someone living with the condition, then I'm somewhat enlightened. 
 Whatever, I've sort of embraced constant self-doubt as part of my life's philosophy. 
 The point of all that is this: If the issue of a boy that has a very hard time understanding other people well enough to function in day-to-day life is enough to grab you, then you might really like this. If you are in it for the mystery of the murdered dog, well, I'll just say that this was not a mystery novel. The twists were interesting in the ways they affected him, not in how they surprised the reader. 
 In all, I loved this book. It's a deep dive into a character's psyche and how he deals with the world. Can't praise it enough.