Helpful Score: 7
AMAZING, AMAZING, AMAZING!! Absolutely wonderful, stunning, beautiful book. I'd wanted to read it for a while, but kept picking up other books first - now I wonder WHY?! It was just great. O'Neill's writing cannot be described - best words may be lyrical, beautiful, astonishing ... Of course you should not have a problem with homosexuality before reading this or you will not like this book. But if you are at all open-minded, I HIGHLY recommend that you read this. I will remember it forever.
Helpful Score: 5
I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't have the fortitude to wade through the heavy Irish vernacular. I'm sure it's a great book, but my patience was lacking.
Helpful Score: 1
Glad to see I wasn't the only one who could not get through this. Too many other books to read to sit and struggle on this one for probably months. I gave up and moving on!
A heartbreaking tale of love. Sounds totally cliche, but it's not.
Although it won the Lambda Literary Award, to say At Swim Two Boys is merely a gay coming-of-age story set in Ireland during WWI would be too simplistic. It's a long tale of love, country, and war intertwined; the Irish fight for independence is a major force explored in the almost 500 pages. Unfortunately for me I don't know much about Irish history and the dialogue was hard to get into at first, but I wanted to finish this story with Jim and Doyler, two teenaged boys with an honest, passionate love for each other, at its center. It took more than 10 weeks to do so, but I'm glad the list of 1001 books you read before you die led me to this work.
This book is set in Ireland during WWI. The writing style is very hard to follow. I've never read any of Jamie O'Neill's books so don't know if that is how he always writes (if so, I will not read another of his books) or if he chose this particular style because that was popular in the early 1900s.
The book is 562 pages. I'm at the start of Chapter 11 (page 250) and have decided to give up. I can often read a 500-page book in a week or less if the book is engaging. This book is not. I started it at least a month ago. I don't recall ever not finishing a book in my 60+ years of reading. There's a part of me that would still like to finish the book but I don't have the energy to spend another month or so slogging through it. There is too much "stream of consciousness" (or as I call it, "brain vomit") writing that adds nothing to the story and, if eliminated, would shorten the book considerably.
The book is 562 pages. I'm at the start of Chapter 11 (page 250) and have decided to give up. I can often read a 500-page book in a week or less if the book is engaging. This book is not. I started it at least a month ago. I don't recall ever not finishing a book in my 60+ years of reading. There's a part of me that would still like to finish the book but I don't have the energy to spend another month or so slogging through it. There is too much "stream of consciousness" (or as I call it, "brain vomit") writing that adds nothing to the story and, if eliminated, would shorten the book considerably.
I agree with Marta's review. I could not get past the first couple of pages due to the unfamiliar brogue slant. It was too distracting for this reader.
