Paddy Clarke Ha, Ha, Ha by Roddy Doyle

Title: Paddy Clarke Ha, Ha, Ha
Author: Roddy Doyle
# pages: 282
Date published: 1993
Genre: Fiction
Challenge(s): Winter Reading Challenge & Award Winners (Booker Prize 1993), Around the World in 80 Books Challenge (Ireland)

Setting: Barrytown, Ireland

First Sentence:

“We were coming down our road.”

Synopsis from Barnes & Noble.com: It is 1968. Patrick Clarke is ten. He loves George Best, Geronimo, and the smell of his hot water bottle. He hates zoos, kissing, and the boys from the Corporation houses. He can't stand his little brother Sinbad. He wants to be a missionary like Father Damien, and he coerces the McCarthy twins and Willy Hancock into playing lepers. He never picks the scabs off his knees before they're ready. Kevin is his best friend. Their names are all over Barrytown, written with sticks in wet cement. They play football, knickknack, jumping to the bottom of the sea. They shoplift. Robbing Football Monthly means four million years in purgatory. But a good confession before you died and you'd go straight to heaven. Paddy wants to know why no one jumped in for him when Charles Leavy had been going to kill him. He wants to stop his da arguing with his ma. He's confused: he sees everything, but he understands less and less.

Reason for Reading: St. Pete book club’s pick for February

Random Thoughts: This book is like a peek inside a 10-year-old boy’s head. It’s cute, but this is actually the second time I’ve read it (the first time was for a different book club). Twice was enough for me. I preferred Doyle’s The Commitments.

Rating: 2.5 (ok, but not Earth shattering)

Also reviewed by:
Valentia's Room
Things Mean a Lot