When Mr Dog Bites
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2015
Hilariously touching and outrageously unforgettable: Mark Haddon's Christopher Boone meets Holden Caulfield on one *#@! of a journey. . .
Dylan Mint has Tourette's. Being sixteen is hard enough, but Dylan's life is a constant battle to keep the bad stuff in – the swearing, the tics, the howling dog that seems to escape whenever he gets stressed... But a routine visit to the hospital changes everything. Overhearing a hushed conversation between the doctor and his mother, Dylan discovers that he's going to die next March. So he grants himself three parting wishes or 'Cool Things To Do Before I Cack It'. But as Dylan sets out to make his wishes come true, he discovers that nothing – and no-one – is quite as he had previously supposed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this no-holds-barred coming-of-age story, Conaghan's U.S. debut, the British author introduces 16-year-old Dylan Mint, who struggles daily with Tourette's syndrome. When Dylan learns that he's likely to die in a few months, he sets out to accomplish three things: have sex with a girl, help his best friend Amir overcome prejudice, and get his soldier father home from Afghanistan. Naturally, nothing goes as planned, as Dylan discovers truths about his family, his own condition, and the people in his life. Focused through narration rife with bursts of profanity and Cockney rhyming slang, this story takes on an almost hallucinatory tone (" BIG GIANT SHITE' I shouted, then whooped a few times and then headed back to class in a massive daze"). It's nevertheless an uncompromising look at the effects of Tourette's, autism, and Oppositional Defiant Disorder on those who have them and their friends and family. Though the story occasionally goes astray amid a meandering plot and dialogue that takes effort to unpack, Conaghan, who has Tourette's himself, does an excellent job of portraying his unconventional and memorable protagonist. Ages 14 up.
