Brian Conaghan

Copy received from Giveaway.

This is quite an interesting read for me as a reader who has close to no knowledge of Tourette’s and I think this is a great book for looking into the mind to see what's it like to have Tourette’s. Although I'm pretty sure everyone has different experiences with it, I think this book is a good starting point for young and old readers alike. (But not too young obviously~)

While I find it a bit hard to believe that someone as young as Dylan Mint already has a whole dictionary of 'bad' words in his arsenal to use and seems somewhat comfortable with his sexuality, but I guess maybe I'm the one that is out of touch with what the current generation that this book is mainly aimed at is up to these days. I am also not so fond of the seemingly useless phone conversation that takes up an entire page, I just pity the wasted space.

That aside, I applaud the author for trying to teach kids about safe sex, accepting people from different background, accepting that there are all sorts of different disabilities and all that jazz~ Kudos to you!
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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.… (more)

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.… (more)