Skippy Dies
Ratings36
Average rating3.8
One sentence synopsis... The humour and horror of life through the eyes of a group of boys at a Catholic boarding school in Dublin. .
Read it if you like... “real” (aka gritty and dark, full of substance abuse, sex, and mental illness) high school stories - think Euphoria or Skins, but with a comic edge. .
Dream casting... the boys are supposed to be 13 years old... give Roman Griffin Davis and Archie Yates a few more years and then they'd be perfect as Skippy and his overweight genius roommate Ruprecht Van Doreen.
Just finished. I'm giving it 5 stars for now, but I need to let it settle for a bit. I almost quit reading after the first 200 or so pages, and I'm really glad I didn't.
great character voices, some seriously hilarious dialogue that would work great in a film. would've been 5 stars if it wasn't for the teacher character whom I found boring and completely unconvincing.
I give this book four stars out of five. To be clear, it's because of the ending.
I still think it takes too long to get to the close.
2.5, I'm not even angry about it, more sad.
I cannot fault the writing. The writing is good, the characters well developed and rounded, the flow and language great, the story solid.
However, if there is a more pessimistic book I have yet to read it (as far as I remember). I would give it points for realism but it's realism is entirely one sided to the worst parts of society. Children are abused, the abusers get away with it, the greedy get rewarded, the weak suffer, the world turns, just another day in a life, move along nothing to see here. Sick.
I didn't like any of the characters. Note, they are well written, but in such a way that they are all either terrible people or boring. What they all have in common is their strong sense of individuality, that is to say, every one of them is selfish. There is no sense of community aside from when they are working as a collective to cover up a scandal. If there is a lesson to be learned I have missed it entirely.
Additionally, many reviews talk about the humor of this book. While I didn't find anything funny about it I did find large chunks of it horrific. What a let down, ESPECIALLY after reading Demon Copperhead.
Also CW: Sexual Abuse, Heavy Drug Use