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Book Review of At Swim, Two Boys

At Swim, Two Boys
At Swim, Two Boys
Author: Jamie O'Neill
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Paperback
reviewed on + 289 more book reviews


Although it won the Lambda Literary Award, to say At Swim Two Boys is merely a gay coming-of-age story set in Ireland during WWI would be too simplistic. It's a long tale of love, country, and war intertwined; the Irish fight for independence is a major force explored in the almost 500 pages. Unfortunately for me I don't know much about Irish history and the dialogue was hard to get into at first, but I wanted to finish this story with Jim and Doyler, two teenaged boys with an honest, passionate love for each other, at its center. It took more than 10 weeks to do so, but I'm glad the list of 1001 books you read before you die led me to this work.