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Loading... The Origins of Benjamin Hackettby Gerald M. O'Connor
None No current Talk conversations about this book.  JordanAshleyPerkins | Jan 26, 2017 |  no reviews | add a review
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All families have secrets. Most go untold. Only the worst seem fated to return... Benjamin Hackett has come of age, technically. And in the midst of the celebratory hangover, his world is whipped out from under his feet. His parents have finally shared their lifelong secret with him; he's adopted. At the age of eighteen, the boy still has some growing up to do, and with the help of JJ, his loquacious consigliore and bodyguard, he embarks on an adventure that'll put to bed a lifetime of lies. Over the course of five days, they find themselves caught up in the darker side of Cork. But when they sweep through the misfits blocking their way and finally discover the truth of it... now that's the greatest shock of all. The Origins of Benjamin Hackett is a tender tale of heartache and displacement told through a wry and courageous voice. Set in Ireland in the summer of 1996, it's a timely reminder that the world hasn't moved on just as fast as we fancy. Now, in this emotionally charged story, Gerald O'Connor explores conditioned guilt and its consequences in a country still hiding from the sins of its past. Praise for THE ORIGINS OF BENJAMIN HACKETT "The Origins of Benjamin Hackett by Gerald O'Connor is a raucous and riotous coming of age story that is brutal, tender and hilarious." -- Paul D. Brazill, author of A Case of Noir and Guns of Brixton "O'Connor doles out killer dialogue that adds oodles of character to this hero's journey. Told with the lilt and panache of Joseph O'Connor and Dermot Bolger in their novels of the '90s, Gerald O'Connor is the new and improved voice we've been waiting for." -- Gerard Brennan, author of Undercover and Wee Rockets "Visceral writing that inherits a long Irish tradition. O'Connor's narrative contains sharp characterisation, and has an assured voice, while dramatising conditioned guilt with humour and style." -- Richard Godwin, author of Buffalo and Sour Mash and Wrong Crowd "If you're expecting the usual coming-of-age tale, you're in for a big shock. This is a tale big on heart and one which the author, Gerald O'Connor, has hied religiously to the advice of Harry Crews for writers, to 'leave out the parts readers skip.' None of those parts remain in these pages. An auspicious debut " -- Les Edgerton, author of The Death of Tarpons, The Bitch, The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Kidnapping, Bomb, and others No library descriptions found. |
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Wikipedia in English
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I have to admit that I went into reading this book completely blind with no expectations because I have never heard of this book previously, nor have I ever read any other works by its author, Gerald M. O'Connor, so at least I wasn't incredibly disappointed as far as that goes. The book begins with a young man, Benjamin Hackett, turning 18 years old and finding out, from the couple who he has always thought of as his parents, that he was, in fact, adopted. Let's just say that he doesn't take the news well and has no details about his biological parents so, along with the help of his best mate "JJ", he embarks on a mission to discover the history of his origins (hence the title) with every intention of greeting his biological parents with a punch in the face. The book follows Benjamin in this quest, a coming of age story, if you will but I found a lot of the scenarios he and JJ find themselves in, and some of the characters they encounter along the way, to be completely far fetched and unrealistic to the point where it was almost insulting to the intelligence of the reader and I couldn't take the book seriously as a result.
This book takes place in Ireland, mainly in the city of Cork, and much of the language throughout the novel reflects that, which I actually enjoyed very much. I've always been a big fan of reading British books and picking up on words or phrases they use that differ from those of Americans and this book had several examples of just that, including: the use of "tinnies" which refers to cans of beer, "box" meaning a television, "torch" for flashlight, and "holdall" was the word used to describe a backpack. Luckily I read this book on my Kindle so whenever one of these questionable words was used I was able to look up the definition immediately, a tool I utilized quite a few times while reading this book.
Having said that I have to be honest in that this was definitely not one of my favorites to say the least and with so many excellent books out there waiting to be read I'm quite disappointed that I wasted my time on this not-so-good one and I can't, in good faith, recommend this to anyone else. I'm giving it three stars because it wasn't horrible, the writing wasn't bad but the storyline was just so unbelievable and the characters were really unremarkable and they didn't leave an impression on me one way or the other. If I had to use one word to describe my feelings towards [b:The Origins of Benjamin Hackett|33136226|The Origins of Benjamin Hackett|Gerald M. O'Connor|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1480252490s/33136226.jpg|53815204] it would be "indifferent".
I received an advanced reading copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. (