Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by cristah
Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
4.0
So, there's Skippy, who though his nickname might suggest it, is not a dog. He's a teenage boy, whose real name is Daniel Juster. He attends a Catholic boys' school in Ireland. That is, until he dies on the floor of Ed's Doughnut House in just the first few pages.
That's not a spoiler, folks. Because while Skippy does indeed die within the first few pages of the book, we're then treated to a whole slew of stories of things that happened prior to his untimely death -- all told from differing points of view. There's Skippy's roommate Ruprecht, who is an overweight weirdo that everyone hates. He's a genius, too, but since none of his genius inventions ever work, no one cares. There's also Howard Fallon, Skippy's pervy history teacher whose new life goal is to nail the hot substitute geography teacher. There's a girl he loves and a psychopathic fellow student who deals drugs -- sort of. Adults. Students. Friends. Enemies. We see everything they saw before Skippy kicked the bucket.
I very much enjoyed Paul Murray's writing throughout this novel, which is maybe why the length of the novel didn't get to me. There were times I wondered just why we were delving so in depth-ly into the thoughts of some of these characters, but Murray wrote their thoughts and feelings so well, I didn't really care. I hated a lot of the characters and loved some of them even more. Kind of hard to get bored when the people you're reading about are so well done.
That's not a spoiler, folks. Because while Skippy does indeed die within the first few pages of the book, we're then treated to a whole slew of stories of things that happened prior to his untimely death -- all told from differing points of view. There's Skippy's roommate Ruprecht, who is an overweight weirdo that everyone hates. He's a genius, too, but since none of his genius inventions ever work, no one cares. There's also Howard Fallon, Skippy's pervy history teacher whose new life goal is to nail the hot substitute geography teacher. There's a girl he loves and a psychopathic fellow student who deals drugs -- sort of. Adults. Students. Friends. Enemies. We see everything they saw before Skippy kicked the bucket.
I very much enjoyed Paul Murray's writing throughout this novel, which is maybe why the length of the novel didn't get to me. There were times I wondered just why we were delving so in depth-ly into the thoughts of some of these characters, but Murray wrote their thoughts and feelings so well, I didn't really care. I hated a lot of the characters and loved some of them even more. Kind of hard to get bored when the people you're reading about are so well done.