Helpful Score: 1
This was a book I could not put down with family secrets and heart break about the day to day life of Derry, Northern Ireland. A young boy in the 1940's relates the impact that the "troubles of Northern Ireland" has on of his family through to the 1970s.
A quick and easy read about Irish boyhood.
A young man grows up in Belfast amid the violence following WWII, and attempts to uncover the secrets within his own family. Slow moving and episodic, the book has no discernible plot until well after the halfway point. There are some nice turns of phrase here, but overall it comes up short.
Booker Prize finalist and New York Times Notable Book. Beautifully written and intense rendering of a post-war Catholic childhood in Ireland.
Powerful story, powerful writing style. I wish I had known more about the historical background in Ireland, but I got the gist of the story, which is an unusual one, very well told.