Bothered by A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

Right about now, I've finished Mark Haddon's 'A Spot of Bother,' his follow-up to his first best-seller 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.'

Took me a week to finish the book as it has become a bother of sorts as I attempted to squeeze reading in between train and cab rides to and fro the office.

The novel centers on the Hall family--how they start losing control in dealing with a retired father going insane over eczema, the single-mom-daughter who's about to marry what everyone thought as the wrong guy, a perfectly-sane and gay son who seems to be the hero of the day, and the mother, who at her age, is sharing fairy tale nights (actually days) with another man. It's entertainingly funny, while at times I had a hard time picking up, what with the use of UK slang. But it's true to form (whatever that means) in that it depicts what the characters ought to be thinking (and saying) at each encounters.

Haddon wins here in giving you a taste of the London family life, though it would have been a different attack if it ever happened here.