#30

[scoradh]

At Swim, Two Boys, Jamie O'Neill

Comments

[ravyn_ashling]

I read this book a couple years ago, and truly loved it, although you were right about its predictability--at least I was able to brace myself and not get too depressed?

[scoradh]

It was mainly because I was expecting it - time period + bloody revolution - that it didn't pack the emotional punch it could have. Oops?

[softlyforgotten]

Oh man, this book. ♥ I agree about the ending, too, that it was rushed, although I confess I was so relieved that it wasn't a gay hate crime that I was more accepting than I would have been otherwise. Oh, original queer fiction and the expectations you raise in me /o\

[scoradh]

Not to sound smug, but I don't think there was such a thing as gay hate crime in Ireland until recently - but only because it was/is such a freaking repressed country that GAY didn't exist until recently. (Or divorce. Or Protestants.)

[buildyourwalls]

This is by far my favorite book EVER. I sobbed for weeks over it, months even.

You were disappointed by the ending? I remember looking back on it months after reading it and sobbing all over again. Maybe it's because the book was read when I was about 19, and at the time I kept a dictionary near by at all times. I'm not as advanced of a reader as you, seriously. I will admit ignorance about Irish history - I knew of teh rebellion of that time, but nto in much detail. I also loved the way it was written, but remember it being very verbose and crazily hard at times.

BUT OMG YOU READ MY FAVORITE BOOK EVER. ILU.

[scoradh]

I think I was mainly annoyed that Jim didn't go on to have more of a life. He seemed to keep fighting that war, meaning he must have joined the IRA or something, and there was a time when it was Ireland not Iraq that was the terrorist threat, so.

It was certainly verbose, but like I said, maybe because the dialect was familiar to me I had it easier?

[skull_bearer]

What was this written, because until quite recently the rule was that you could write gay characters as long as one of them died at the end.

[scoradh]

2001. Do you mean a rule like a law or a rule of thumb?

[skull_bearer]

Like a law. I think 2001 might be a bit late though, but the law was one of the reasons Brokeback Mountain has a sad ending.

[scabbyfish]

Ohh, I read this book by chance a couple of years ago and totally fell in love with it; I'm not someone who tends to re-read (because let's face it, there's always many more books queueing up) but this made it onto my short list of exceptions...

[scoradh]

I don't think I'd reread, but these days the only book on my reread list is The Blue Castle anyway...