“I chose to read Spot of Bother largely on the credibility of Curious Life in the Incident of a Dog that I really enjoyed. I didn't ever read any other Mark Haddon besides Curious Incident, so I thought well, I like an author; I'll try their second book as well.
Spot of Bother is sort of a — I don't want to say "a day in the life" — a period in the life of a British family that is dealing with a number of crises. The main sort of protagonist character is dealing with getting older and what he does in his transition from becoming a worker to a retiree and the pressures that are being put on him from his family.
I think the things that I enjoyed about the book are largely based on the same sorts of writing styles that I enjoyed in Curious Incidents in the Life of a Dog. Spot of Bother does a really good job of doing sort of like __________ where they tell the story from a lot of different perspectives; but instead of doing all the stories independent as chapters, the stories sort of overlap. So you almost get a sense of starting, going five paces, taking three back with a different person, going three or five more paces; and that style was very engaging.
I didn't like the fact that the book really paints pictures of people as pathetic. I mean really sort of as if they don't have any agency. They don't really have the opportunity; they sort of choose these different things in their lives. Reading the book made me very uncomfortable, and obviously the personal issues to deal with in the story is feeling like these characters are unsympathetic because maybe the cheat or because they do things that are dishonest. None of the characters stand out until about halfway to a third of the book. It was sheer perseverance that kept me reading up until that half of the book.
I would recommend the book to anyone that enjoyed Curious Life of Incident of a Dog. I'd also recommend the book to anyone that likes stories told in a multi-player format, in a way that they're being told the story from different perspectives. In this respect, stylistically, it was fantastic.”
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