Bianca's Reviews > Boy Swallows Universe

I had to push myself to finish this novel. This much-lauded, hyped novel. I even went to see the author speak to a packed room at the Perth Writers' Festival, so I was somewhat invested.

I won't go into too many details about the plot.

Boy Swallows Universe is a coming of age novel, about Eli Bell, who is brought up in a rough part of Brisbane, by his drug peddling and occasional user mum, and her boyfriend, Lyle.

This novel has a very distinct Australian feel to it, it almost feels put on, although people in the know say it's pretty accurate for 1990s Queensland.

Boy Swallows Universe is filled with characters from the wrong side of the tracks, people, most of us have never come across. Among all these people, the brothers Bell, Eli and his elder sibling, Gus, try to survive the best way they can. Their mum is not the most stable person, although she loves them. Their father is an alcoholic agoraphobe who suffers from anxiety and depression.

In my view, this novel is quite obviously a debut, as it's self-conscious while trying to be cruisy and quirky. There are some good writing passages and quite a few interesting things fill this overly long novel. But they are vignettes, many times, they stand alone, as we move onto the next chapter quite abruptly. Eli and his brother are charming characters, albeit too saintly.

There are many aspects of the novel that are exaggerated and some were outright incredulous, which doesn't really work for me.

So, in conclusion, this was not bad, but I never felt completely invested, charmed or horrified.
This will go straight onto my virtual shelf of Australian coming-of-age novels that everyone but me loves.

This counts towards my Aussie Author Challenge 2019 on http://bookloverbookreviews.com/readi...