Girl Interrupted VS The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime

From the books I have read in College Literature, I have realized a lot of similarities and differences between Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. 

Some of the similarities I noticed was that Susanna and Christopher both were very observant about their surroundings. Susanna always was intrigued by patterns of the floor, walls and about the human body especially her bones, that's why she bit part of her hand in order to see the bones inside her hand. The reason why she did that was because she felt like she didn't have any bones and that she was different than others. Christopher on the other hand is always observing things. He always notices the extraordinary in ordinary situations. For example, he noticed that the garden fork that was used to kill Wellington, Mrs. Shear's black poodle, was owned by Mrs. Shears so nobody planned to kill him. He also noticed a lot of things about his journey to find his mother in London. In both stories, it was written in a narrative perspective  so both stories were telling a story about their lives. Both stories were inspired by their own daily lives. For example Mark worked with mentally disabled kids that's why he wrote a story about Christopher, and Susanna wrote about her past experiences at McLean Hospital. She also added all medical documents to emphasize on her diagnosis/stay at the hospital.

The differences between these two books that I noticed would be that it is both taken place at different time/places. In Kaysen's book, it takes place in Massachusetts in McLean Hospital and for Haddon, it is in Swindon and London. Christopher was mainly home all the time while his dad was at work and he went on his own expeditions to figure out who killed Wellington. Because he had autism, he was immensely smart but yet arrognant when it comes to the social aspects of life. He would always criticize people in general because he thought they were "stupid" and "too caught up in their lives to notice anything". If he was with living with Susanna, he would totally get irritated with her and use his broad vocabulary terms to explain to her how "stupid" she is for doing whatever she does. The diagnosis/mental illness that each character has is different. Christopher had autism and Asperger syndrome while Susanna was depressed with borderline personality disorder. Susanna also attempted to kill herself and Christopher did not. The plot was different because it is a mystery for Haddon's novel and Kaysen is pretty much a diary of her life. 

Those are the differences I noticed from my reading those books for College Literature and I would highly recommend them because they show you a totally new perspective of mental illness.