Boy Swallows Universe: A Novel by Trent Dalton (5 stars)

A simply spectacular novel.

We view the world through young Eli's eyes: the characters are all fascinating, and the setting is unique. It's very much auto-biographical and characters are based on real-life people, which I think definitely helped make them feel so unique and interesting.

Frequently I found myself on the edge of my seat as Eli struggled through life in Brisbane's suburbs as the son of a drug dealer and mixing with heroin importing gangs, making terrible life decisions, and decisions born out of poverty and desperation. 

Much of this book reminded me of The Goldfinch where Theo gets led astray by Boris in suburban Vegas, making bad choices that set him up for failure. Just like in a horror movie I found myself screaming, "nooooo! don't do that!".

That makes it sound dark and desperate, but it isn't. The amazing feat of the writing is that Dalton creates Eli's character with a calm acceptance, a uniquely Aussie self-deprecation and matter-of-factness, a cute and naive romantic crush, and a lot of fairly dark humour about his situation.

The toilet’s floor space is just long enough and wide enough to accommodate a porcelain toilet and an opening door and the floor is currently holding an inch-deep pool of my father’s piss.

Nothing connects a city quite like South-East Asian heroin. 

There's drug dealers, an alcoholic father, a mother in prison, domestic violence, gang violence, ex-cons as mentors, and a ruthless bikie anti-hero. But somehow it's...funny. And beautifully poetic:

August is one year older than me but August is one year older than everybody. August is one year older than the universe.

True love like this asks lovers to cast aside what is meant to be and work with what is.

‘You’re not a pussy. Don’t you ever be ashamed of crying. You cry because you give a shit. Don’t ever be ashamed of giving a shit. Too many people in this world are too scared to cry because they’re too scared to give a shit.’

There's plenty of bad stuff, but there's also some glorious uniquely Australian suburban life moments that hit me right in the homesickness spot:

with the frozen food section August and I hang out in on the hottest summer days, debating which ice block is more bite for your buck out of a Hava Heart, a Bubble O’ Bill and, the unchallengeable masterpiece, the banana Paddle Pop.

watching Brisbane’s relatively new and promising rugby league outfit, the Brisbane Broncos, playing Mal Meninga’s near-invincible Canberra

and many mentions of Dunlop KT-26s. The classic shoe of my childhood.

It turns, very surprisingly, into a thrilling page-turner at the end. I suspect fans of literary fiction will find this somewhat disappointing, but I thought it was great, and raced through to the end.

There's just a hint of the supernatural that runs through the story, but we never definitively learn one way or another if this is a coping mechanism invented by Eli and August, or something more fantastic. The logical explanation is the former, but interpretation is left to the reader.

5 stars.

Crown of Thunder by Tochi Onyebuchi (2 stars)

The follow on book from Beasts Made of Night. Unfortunately this one is worse, having built the world it falls apart completely into a tedium of endless fight scenes between characters whose motivations make no sense and I couldn't care less about.

Spoiler:

Taj's best friend changes his loyalty for literally no reason at all. Then changes it back, hey I was on your side all along! Why would Taj trust him the second time? There's not even any discussion about why he betrays Taj in the first place.

So many other problems with this book, my highlights are all like "What? How did she escape?" and "Laaame" but it's been too long and I can't be bothered to go dig them all up.

2 stars.

Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi (3 stars)

Sins are visible manifestations of guilt that can be extracted, fought, and eaten by an enslaved underclass of sin-eaters who spend much of their time consuming the sins of the rich. WHAT A CONCEPT! DAMN! Unfortunately the execution is lacking. The world building is quite good, and the cover art is amazing, but that's about all we get.

We don't get good characters, there's no reason to really care about any of them. Their motivations are unknown. Taj tells us he's in love with someone and it comes as a surprise because despite being inside his head there was no build-up to that statement and if feels unbelieveable.

We don't get good pacing, time seems to expand and contract all over the place. Taj breaks ribs and an ankle and then seemingly in the same day is back to super-athletic fighting of sin-beasts and it's never mentioned again. All of a sudden Taj is an important member of the royal household, how did that happen?

The ending is a ridiculous cliffhanger, but the next book was out, so I was less mad than people who read this when the first one came out :) The world was just good enough to make me want to see if the next one was any better.

3 stars.