2008-06-17 Moving, intelligent, addictive

The last reviewer said that this had school reading list written all over it. Well I guess I'm about to prove his point. I'm a secondary English teacher and this was left at our school by a Heinemann rep. Seeing as I was the only one who seemed vaguely interested in this book I took it home.

Now, I'm no Roddy Doyle devotee (I've never even wanted to read any of his work before) so if you're looking for a Doyle fan's perspective, some of the other reviews might help you more.

What I can say is that when reps leave novels for us I rarely finish them and never enjoy them, but I did enjoy this - a lot.

A previous reviewer mentioned that there is little of Roddy Doyle's humour in the novel, and well, I guess he's right. There aren't any jokes. Where I disagree with the previous reviewer is his assessment of the parallel storylines. I felt that they worked brilliantly. I wanted to know about the boys. I wanted to know about their sister. I found that my interest in both story lines was maintained throughout. And the two ideas are cleverly linked.

For me it was just subtle enough, and Doyle fills this book with subtle portrayals of character delivered in precise uncomplicated prose. Most teenage fiction misses the mark for me, but I believed this. It was great.

I picked this up (having forgotten about it on Monday, by Wednesday night I'd finished it. Now I am a bit of a soppy 'eejit' I admit, but the end to this book made me cry.

School reading list, here we come! - given a fair wind and a bit of leeway in the budget at least.