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Kieron Smith, Boy (2008)

by James Kelman(Favorite Author)

3.58 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0151013489 (ISBN13: 9780151013487)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

review 1: My word. I got really, really sick of this book. I spent about 6 years of my life living in Scotland, and I love the place. What I grew to hate was people using the accent as some kind of substitute for real creativity. The music scene in Edinburgh and Glasgow is full of wonderful, talented musicians. It's also full of bands that sing in the most overwrought Scottish accents ever to mask their complete lack of creative spark. Kelman isn't that bad in this book. But the dialect grows old pretty quickly, it feels a little contrived. The whole tale is a rambling memoir of childhood, of the strange importance taken on by having the right school blazer, a employed father and your religious affiliations. It's pretty fun at the beginning. But the whole thing is just wa... morey, way too long. By the fourth time Kieron's mused about how to deal with the mongrel dog from Close number 4 and climbing up the ronepipe you're just about ready to cuff him round the ears and tell him to grow up.So it's alright...but it needed a way better editor. Half the length would probably have equalled double the joy. Because nothing really happening for over 400 pages is really too slow.
review 2: I don't know if it's the language or the cut out swear words or just that this was a pointless book but I'm not a fan. Starting out on this one was slow because of the language. I finally gave up on trying to understand each word and just went with reading when I came into clumps of swear words/bad words that are cut out so I spent my time trying to figure that out, realizing that Scottish swear words are going to be different from American so then I had to give up on that. Then I realize that I have read 25 sections about climbing, 17 sections about fighting, 15 about the prejudices among Catholics and Protestants, and none of it really having any meaning or substance to it. Finally I finished this one and flat out felt like I just wasted my weekend by reading a really pointless book. Sigh. less

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