Basically, if you haven’t heard of this novel, it’s the story of a gay Irish man from the beginning to the end of his life, told in 7 year intervals. However, what struck me about it is that it feels like Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, but done right.
Both are hefty books that I finished within a couple of days, but where A Little Life felt cruel and manipulative, THIF had a protagonist that the author clearly cared about. It didn’t feel like it was exploiting it’s MC with unreasonable misery without any character development.
What I’m trying to say is that if you want an un-put-downable read that will rip your heart out and stamp it into pieces without having to deal with melodramatic torture porn, read this book. You won’t regret it. It was marvelous!
Love this book but the author is terrible. He’s not Jewish yet wrote a different book about the Holocaust and has gotten into several fights over the inaccuracies therein with the HOLOCAUST MUSUEM. Like gosh, who could be the authority here? Is it the old white dude from Ireland or the museum in charge of the world their OWN HISTORY? He also wrote a book with a trans MC that’s full of deadnaming. So…one GREAT book and two super problematic ones.
He also famously copied instructions from a Zelda video game into one of his novels because he couldn’t be arsed to read more carefully. He’s awful and dumb to boot.
It’s funny, you’re getting downvoted but if this were a thread about the very real criticisms of The Boy in The Striped Pajamas you probably wouldn’t. Don’t care if he wrote one good book, his work has been actively harmful in teaching about the Holocaust to children.