Submarine is an odd book, just as you think you’ve got the gist of it and you’re starting to predict what’s going to happen it takes a mad turn and utterly surprises you, leaving you confused, but smiling.

Joe Dunthorne, an upcoming poet and novelist, weaves a surreal and off-kilter tale of fourteen-year-old Oliver, a character reminiscent of the narrator of Mark Haddon’s ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’, but more scheming, less innocent and not so severely autistic. Oliver is the narrator and also the main catalyst of events, which is the reason for the strangeness of Submarine, as he is an incredibly weird fourteen-year-old. He has hunches based on exaggerated facts, and he always follows them, he speculates wildly about people he knows, analysing them and diagnosing them with all manner of quirks, fetishes and mental disorders when it is usually him that has the quirks, fetishes or mental disorders. Submarine follows his transition from child to teenager, his experiments and first experiences with sex, drugs, love and loss; the loss of his first girlfriend, his bullying childhood ways, his trust in his parents, his virginity and overall his naivety.

At the beginning it came across as a children’s book, with the narrating voice sounding childish and almost exactly like the voice in ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ but it changed quite abruptly and Oliver’s actions, the way he deals with situations, became more mature suddenly, not more normal though, he stays as wacky as ever throughout the story.

The narrating style comes across as very autistic; he states mundane facts and seems to take consolation in facts but also in great flights of fantasy, which he takes as facts. He is a complex character and is prone to out-of-the-blue character changes that sometimes work, and add to the oddity of Oliver, but sometimes just seem wrong.

Submarine seemed to me to be rather hit and miss, but the former of the two prevails and makes for an interesting read. It is a book that I feel I’m going to have to read again before I can entirely grasp it. Submarine is surreal, engaging, different, and a rollicking story, it has left a strong impression on me and I would recommend it to just about anyone.