Brian ConaghanRecensioni

Trigger warnings: Displacement, military violence and war themes, refugee experiences

5/10, this was a snoozefest of a book and I'm surprised that Costa gave this one an award and it also gave one to another book called Sophie Someone which I didn't like and I didn't enjoy this one; maybe we have tastes that are too different from each other I don't really know. The story is about Charlie Law whose surname coincidentally is the same as my first name and he was called by his last name which was really strange to see but nonetheless I pushed on because that wasn't important. It wasn't that intriguing since it's just about when he met Pav who immigrated from one town to another to escape a war and barely spoke English however that made sense so then they bonded with one another, Charlie stops a mafia thing from happening and that was it. I disliked how the war was essentially in the background most of the time and I would have liked if I got to see Pav's POV of what happened when he was in the warzone and the choice to have thoughts written in all caps stood out and not in a good way. The other side characters were just forgettable and so was the side plot which was shoehorned in like almost every non romance book nowadays and guess what, the side plot was about Charlie developing an attraction with a girl named Jessica and that was it. If you like refugee stories give this one a try but another good one you should read is Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhhà Lại which has a similar story to this.

Publicado originalmente: El Extraño Gato del Cuento

Hace un tiempo les dije que quería leer este libro por la curiosidad que sentía por como el autor traería un personaje con síndrome de Tourette, solo que jamás imaginé que el libro fuera a gustarme tanto. Al leerlo me trajo el recuerdo de otro libro al cual le tengo bastante cariño "The Perks of Being Wallflower", los libros son muy diferentes, pero la sensación entrañable de los personajes, la inocencia, fue un completo dejavú.

When Mr. Dog Bites es adorable, ver la vida a través de Dylan Mint es una de esas cosas que siempre voy a agradecer a los libros, la posibilidad de prestarme inocencia y diversión a pesar de las cosas que puedan pasar. Como dice la sinopsis, Dylan escucha la noticia que va a morir, y su lista ‘Cool Things To Do Before I Cack It’ (en español literal sería algo así como "Diez cosas geniales para hacer antes que la mierdee") es una de las cosas más geniales de la vida, es un adolescente, obviamente tenía que pedir ciertas cosas, pero él no es egoísta, también debe conseguirle otro best buddy para su mejor amigo. Tengo unas ganas enormes de resumir el libro ahora mismo, que no tienen idea. Sobre todo por la forma divertida en la que el autor ciertos temas como el racismo y la homofobia a través del libro.

Brian Conoghan no exagera con el síndrome de Tourette pero tampoco se olvida de él, nos da una dosis perfecta. El libro está lleno de personas entrañables, y sobre todo la amistad de Dylan y Amir es algo que no voy a olvidar. No sé si estoy siendo muy parcial pero no logro encontrarle un pero, quizá solo una especie de advertencia, sino me equivoco, está escrito con el inglés irlandés, o sea que si estás empezando recién a leer en inglés algunas frases puedan ser un poco confusas, digo que no estoy segura porque me acostumbré rápido, así que ¡léanlo!


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It was just pretty boring to be honest.

Charlie is really annoying as a character, he's supposedly smart but he comes across as thick as shit. The dialogue style is very tedious, as no-one really seems to say anything so we have pages and pages of Charlie asking questions or repeating stuff to actually try to get some information.

The ending was kinda rushed and it just seemed to be oh they're good now, and book is over.

Nothing about the wider setting is ever really explained fully, which is a shame as that was what drew me in to begin with. It could have been really interesting to have Charlie learn more about the politics and become more involved rather than remaining pretty clueless.

Thanks to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for sending this ebook for me to read.
This is the story of Jess and Nicu, troubled teenagers who become unlikely friends and allies when they meet at a youth offending working party.
Both are in difficulties at home, where Jess has an abusive stepfather and Nicu's parents want him to marry a Roma girl and return to their homeland. The pressures on both build and grow, and the splendid verse assists in delivering the tension. The verse makes this quite a quick read, but also an emotional one so be prepared. The issues central to this book are topical whilst being universal and timeless, which will, I think, make it a winner. There are some shining moments of happiness together for the youngsters, which are the more important because of the darkness of their daily lives. The book ends abruptly, but not without some hope.
A must read.

I really liked the story but the ending was just... why? And Nicu's POV really bothered me, it being written in super broken English just does not make sense to me.

A beautiful poignant novel and a fantastic collaboration from two of my favouriteYA authors.

I listened to this as an audio book and felt that the narrator could have done with a younger voice.
The story was fine amusing in parts

Literary Merit: Okay
Characterization: Poor
Recommended: Not Recommended
Level: High School

The novel written in verse with swapping perspectives has become a popular vehicle for understanding diverse viewpoints, but the popular genre never quite succeeds here. Jess is a white girl living in London and suffering under the abuse of her temperamental father. Nicu is a Romani boy, also living in London, whose parents are planning to marry him off to a girl he doesn't know. When the two meet while completing court-ordered community service, they develop a bond.

This could be the recipe for a great story, but the characters always feel more like types than real people, and all the side characters are completely one-note and two-dimensional. Nicu is Romani, but his heritage feels inauthentic and is relatively unidentifiable without him telling us (he mostly comes off as a general "person of color"), and he often falls into the "noble savage" trope, remaining an eternal cinnamon roll and even sacrificing himself and all he's worked towards for the white girl at the end. The decision to have all of his poems in broken English feels lazy and uninspired. This book is trying to be timely and compassionate, but there are many other books out there that do it far better.

This novel tells the story of teenager and Tourettte's sufferer Dylan Mint. From a first person perspective, it takes a look at how living with Tourette's might actually be like, from the physical and mental pain to the stigma and bullying, all done with a child-like, innocent humour wrapped up in the character of Dylan Mint, a sixteen year old, teenage boy. Dylan is an immature character for his age and speaks mostly in slang or rhyming language and has word-associations; it is not clear how much of this is because of Tourette's or just because of his immaturity and of being a teenager. Either way, Dylan captures your heart further and further into the novel, makes you laugh out loud and at times, nearly want to cry!

This novel covers other themes such as racism, domestic-violence and love all though the trials and tribulations of Dylan Mint. This is a marvellous, perfectly believable story, which does make an impact on the issue of Tourette's. I would definitely recommend this to young adults and adults alike.

A story, told in free-verse, about two teens who meet in a program for young offenders, both of them there for petty shoplifting. Nicu is a Roma (gypsy) from Romania. His family is in North London to earn money for his arranged marriage, to happen in several months. He is only 15, and even though he knows it is the culture of his people, he does not want to get married. Jess lives with her mother and her violent stepfather. Tormented, she spends as much time as possible out of the house, and lives in fear when she is home. In a short time, the two become friends and start to rely on each other, but Jess's former friends aren't having Nicu as part of their life.

Pretty grim story that left me feeling depressed.

2.5 stars. The book has a lot of great moments, but the homophobia is just too much.

Charlie Law lives in Little Town. Little Town is in a conflict with Old Country. Old Country militia has taken over Little Town, harassing the people, bombing buildings. Life is about survival, managing meager supplies, and laying low. Charlie has a new neighbor Pav Duda, a refugee from Old Country. Despite all the suspicions Little Town holds about Old Country, Charlie takes Pav under his wing, trying to teach him the lingo and how to get along in Little Town. But gaining favors from the Big Man means Charlie ends up caught in a catch-22 situation that will profoundly impact Pav's family. The rapid-fire dialog highlights the tensions of living in Little Town with Charlie coming across as an amusing shlub just trying to make it. A different kind of book, not sure how or where I would place it, but entertaining and thought-provoking.

A great debut novel, funny and honest with a wonderfully memorable protagonist.

Up for this year's Carnegie Medal. Coming of age story with quite a big difference.

Dylan is as foul-mouthed and dirty-minded as most 16 year olds. Reading this does a lot to remind me of just how revolting most teenagers (including me when I was one) are. But that's perfectly fine and normal. However unlike most teenagers, Dylan suffers with Tourette's. It's easy to empathise with the embarrassment, ridicule and pain this causes him.

I didn't know much about Tourette's before reading this, and although it's definitely not a textbook or primer on the condition (I don't think it was actually named until about 50 pages in), I know a lot more about it now. But more than that, this is a surprisingly charming story of someone who's different, who faces not different challenges but extra challenges to other teenagers. What really comes out is that the main difficulty is not in the condition itself, but in how people react to it and treat him differently because of it.

The plot is pretty entirely predictable (so I won't go into it), but the real story is Dylan figuring it out for himself. Most of the time this is done really well, though sometimes the author is a little heavy-handed.

Great story about friendship, family, understanding and growing up. Dylan's still got an awful lot of growing up to do by the end (shaking off the casual and unacknowledged homophobia would be a start - but that's true of many teenage boys), but the worst it probably behind him.

I started off not liking this at all - I must admit it was the swearing that put me off, and then the teenage boys' frank conversations about sex...
I am running a Carnegie Shadowing group, and I wouldn't feel comfortable about recommending this to the year 7 girls at all!
However. I really, really like Dylan, the central character, a 16 year old boy with Tourette's (hence some of the swearing, the rest is just teenagers) And I love his tender friendship with 'The bold Amir', and their protection of each other. One of the conversations they have about racism is just perfect: "But how can you be offended by something like skin?....Skin doesn't even talk". It ends with - "I do know it's not normal to hate people because of the colour of their skin."
It is a touching and funny story, with fully rounded characters, and I ended up loving it.
But I'm discussing it with the year 9s.

"We kicked stones around for awhile in silence, which was Daddy Cool, because the one thing that's different between best buds and stupid acquaintances is that it's fine and dandy to boot stones around in silence with your best bud, but with acquaintances you have to think of rubbish things to say all the time in case they think you're dead boring, or a mongo. My new shoes where are scuffed and scuzzy as well. I didn't care, though, because I was happy as I pig in piss that two buds were kicking some stones around in silence. That's what life's all about.
Silence.
Kicking.
Silence.
Kicking.
More silence.
More kicking.
Even more silence.
Then some more kicking."

This book delivers up one of my favorite types of characters - a damaged, misunderstood, precocious, super quirky teen with a hilarious outlook on life. (See also: books like Matt Greene's Ostrich and Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole series). This one offers up a fair helping of dysfunction a la Mark Haddon's Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, as our protagionist, 16 year old Dylan, suffers from a fairly fucking vicious affliction - Tourette's. SLUT BITCH MOTHERHUMPER *growl, tic, spit, BARK BARK BARK* Dylan is a sweet, fairly naive boy who loves his momma and his best bud, a racially-discriminated Pakistani with Asperger's named Amir. Together, they attend a high school with other "special" students who wet themselves, have epic meltdowns, scream at each other and... of course, bully one another. Because, if its one thing I've learned, it's that kids are equal opportunity assholes to one another. Nasty predatory little bastards regardless of social functioning index or IQ.

Upon visiting a doctor's office, poor, foul-mouthed, momma's boy Dylan overhears a conversation that leads him to believe that he is dying of a incurable, terminal illness that will leave him dead by March. Naturally, he immediately creates a bucket list, and he elicits the help of his best friend Amir in carrying out his final requests. On it, he hopes to woo and do Michelle, a fellow school mate, who has a wonky leg and a raging care of Opposition Defiance Disorder. He also sets out to try and help his best friend Amir stand up to the unfounded criticism and racial slurs he faces on a daily basis at school. Lastly, Dylan wants his good, old dad to return home...from an undisclosed military mission... where he is forced into complete radio silence with his family... despite the number of letter's Dylan has posted to him there. (Sounds fishy, right? Yeah. This story line was the least interesting to me, as I reader, because I felt it "the big reveal" be so obvious to the reader that it was insulting to Dylan's character to assume he suspected nothing was amiss. Yes, I realize he's a bit slow, a bit too trusting... but really? Perhaps I'm treading into spoiler territory, so I'll stop. I just found this revelation to be the most uninspired or ingenuine of the other storylines.

But I digress. Despite the obvious (overdone or trite) daddy issues, I really LOVED this book and FELL IN LOVE with its characters. I don't think I've added that the book is set in Scotland and has a charming bit of regional dialect paired with Dylan's wacky way of talking. And, I mentioned the bullying, asshole kids which threw me back to a recent read - Native Pittsburgher Anthony Breznican's Brutal Youth. In my review, I discussed the horrors of wearing inappropriate footwear at the beginning of the new school year. Lo and behold, Dylan IS that kid with the K-Mart shoes:

"See, I was one of those cats who began a new school year decked head to toe in new gear. I never understood why, though, because I liked the last set of clothes I had. I think it was just to show that we weren't really, really poor and didn't have leather carpets or empty kitchen cupboards. But it was bottom-of-the barrel cheapo clobber whichever way you looked at it. My new clothes told me that we were a teenyweeny bit poor. Not as poor as the mega-poor kids, though, the ones with a bad odor off them, the borderline mingers - they've got zilch. Their pot to piss in has a hole in it. They never have new bags or shirts or shoes or anything. In's a sin. I feel heart-sorry for them."

HEART-SORRY. Sigh. Me, too, Dylan. Me, too.

Many, many thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read a galley of this most excellent book. I was going to rate the book at 3, but as I was writing this review, I really got jazzed up about it again. I think I fell in love a little bit. So, 4 stars it is. Its been a few days between my reading and review-writing, and when a book can elicit a strong emotional hold on your memory after you've read some other books in-between, you know you've got an exceptionally good one. Why not 5? The whole dad bit. I mean, Dylan's letters to his dad allowed the readers a direct window into his character's soul...BUUUUUTTTTT, my good-old, buddy Adrian Mole accomplished that in diary entries (which was, for me, a better and comparable way to accomplish the same vulnerability and voice). I don't know why I felt such an aversion to the dad's (non)presence in the book. I just thought it painfully obvious from the jump. Then again, Dylan isn't the most observant (or accurate) participant in his own life - as you'll find out when you read the book ;)

When sixteen year old Dylan Mint overhears part of a whispered conversation between his mother and his doctor he becomes convinced he is dying and with just six months or so to live, he develops three ‘Cool Things To Do Before I Cack It’. The first is to shag Michelle Malloy, the second is to find a new best bud for his best friend Amir, and the third is to get his father home from the war before time runs out. It’s a deceptively unambitious plan but given anytime he gets anywhere near Michelle he has the irrepressible urge to shout ‘slag’ in her face, Amir is an Autistic Pakistani who smells of curry, and he can’t directly contact his soldier father who he believes is on special ops in the Middle East, it might not be as easy as it seems.

Set in Glasgow (Scotland), this quirky coming of age tale features a teenage protagonist with Tourette’s, a condition that causes verbal and physical tics. A student at a ‘special school’, Dylan is almost seventeen and like most adolescent boys he has his priorities, dictated by his hormones, which forms the basis of his personal bucket list. As a character, Dylan is endearingly awkward with an optimistic and thoughtful nature and though he struggles with his condition, he is determined to not let it drag him down. What did concern me about the portrayal of Dylan was his naivety, I can only assume he has more complex neurological issues related to, or in addition to, Tourette’s, which weren’t, but perhaps should have been, shared.

In addressing the themes of friendship, intolerance and family in When Mr Dog Bites Conaghan often uses humour to temper the more serious challenges Dylan faces like bullying, blackouts and learning the truth about his absent father, but there are also some sweet and poignant moments. The story unfolds mainly as you might expect, with some minor twists in the details. I do I think the language may prove to be a barrier for non commonwealth readers who may find the slang and cockney rhyming difficult to make sense of but I wouldn’t want that to put anyone off.

I liked When Mr Dog Bites, and I think it’s weaknesses were balanced by its strengths, but I was hoping for something more. However I think it will satisfy a young adult audience of around 14-18, and would be especially suitable for boys looking for contemporary fiction.

I'm sorry that I cannot give an opinion of this book. Unfortunately it didn't work out for me, so I didn't even finish it.

I'm not saying it was a bad book, or that the writing was bad. In fact, it was a nice writing style. What didn't work out for me was that there was no conversation. We learned of the characters through the eyes of other people. That's not the type of book I enjoy, so I decided to leave it for other people to review.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me a copy nonetheless.