Boy Swallows Universe is not the type of book I would typically read or pick up in a bookstore, but I was delightfully surprised. The writing in this book was incredible, though I was sometimes put off by the Austrialian sayings. I fell in love with the main characters Eli and August.

Sadly another DNF for me.

I just didn't connect with the voice and I feel like I was struggling to care about the characters or what happened to them. Certainly a disconnect between myself and the story.

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton is available now.

For more information regarding Trent Dalton (@TrentDalton) please visit his Twitter account.

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This coming-of-age-story is like none other I've ever read. The writing is just stunning, the characters are compelling and the book takes you on an emotional journey you won't soon forget. Eli and August stole my heart.

I’m a huge fan of books written in verse, but this one took me the longest time to really get into. I found myself having an extremely hard time connecting with the story itself. It took me multiple times starting and stopping to commit to reading it.
The characters were very endearing and I was so glad I got into it for that reason alone. I found myself very connected to their journey and am so glad I picked this one up.
I will say that maybe the hype surrounding the book made me feel a bit let down and lower the rating from a four to a three star read. Though it could have been the face that I picked it up and put it down multiple times. In the end I’m so glad I committed to this one and feel I got a lot out of it.

I am a huge fan of Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton. Set in Australia in the 1980's, the story begins with a boy named Eli lBell living with his older brother August and his mum and stepdad. A boy’s coming of age is an awkward time on a good day to say the least. Salt those wounds with a mum and stepdad that are heroin dealers, a brother who doesn’t speak (literally), an absentee real dad and an ex-jailbird as a babysitter and you have a wicked dysfunctional family. Under these circumstances, Eli and his brother try to live a normal teenage life. They soon find themselves in danger when getting wrapped up in their stepdad’s heroin deals. When their stepdad goes missing and their mum is sent to prison, they find themselves reunited with their real dad (who is also a hot mess). Life continues on for these two brothers as they continue to find good in the world under undesirable circumstances. With their unconditional love and desire to better themselves, Eli and August Bell will steal your heart and stay with you long after you finish the book.
Trent Dalton’s novel was wonderful. Though his book is fiction, it is based on some of his real life experiences. His book is filled with grit, heartache and survival that will have you grabbing your tissues one minute and chuckling to yourself the next. I simply loved this book! I invite you to go on this wild ride. You will not regret it!. Put this book on your TBR list ASAP!

**I received a copy of Boy Swallows Universe from HarperCollins Publishers via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was prepared to abandon this novel after reading the blurb.
I was so under-prepared for this exhilarating novel. Dalton's debut is not one I'd recommend to those new to tween or new adult reading material - has quite a few adult-like themes and mature content.

*Received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My review is my own.

Eli is a main character who instantly grabs the reader and pulls them into his world. That world is something completely foreign to me, as it is set in Australia with parents who are drug dealers. The author deftly balances heartbreak with hope, and I recommend it to anyone looking for a good read.

This is one of my favorite books so far this year. It was so beautifully written and so unexpected. I can’t tell if it’s marketed as YA or not, I think it could go either way. Seems like it’d be a great guy book, young or old. Highly recommend!

I had mixed feelings about Boy Swallows Universe. I liked the story overall but struggled with the writing style and didn’t love the ending.

Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for this early copy,

This was a dnf for me. I had when that happens but I did not connect with the writing style at all.

I am a huge fan of Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton. Set in Australia in the 1980's, the story begins with a boy named Eli lBell living with his older brother August and his mum and stepdad. A boy’s coming of age is an awkward time on a good day to say the least. Salt those wounds with a mum and stepdad that are heroin dealers, a brother who doesn’t speak (literally), an absentee real dad and an ex-jailbird as a babysitter and you have a wicked dysfunctional family. Under these circumstances, Eli and his brother try to live a normal teenage life. They soon find themselves in danger when getting wrapped up in their stepdad’s heroin deals. When their stepdad goes missing and their mum is sent to prison, they find themselves reunited with their real dad (who is also a hot mess). Life continues on for these two brothers as they continue to find good in the world under undesirable circumstances. With their unconditional love and desire to better themselves, Eli and August Bell will steal your heart and stay with you long after you finish the book.
Trent Dalton’s novel was wonderful. Though his book is fiction, it is based on some of his real life experiences. His book is filled with grit, heartache and survival that will have you grabbing your tissues one minute and chuckling to yourself the next. I simply loved this book! I invite you to go on this wild ride. You will not regret it!. Put this book on your TBR list ASAP!

**I received a copy of Boy Swallows Universe from HarperCollins Publishers via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The most extraordinary thing about this book is that you never know where it is gonna take you. This is a book that you definitely don't want to judge by the cover because beneath the cute, colourful ya cover with the intriguing title there is a really heavy, often bloody story about South Asian drug traffic, the inhumanity of prison life, economic inequality, bullying and living on the wrong side of the tracks.
The book starts in a really weird place and although it's confusing at times and it makes it doubt yourself and the characters mental health, it always feel like it is going somewhere. The author has a unique voice being able to imbue the hardest scenes with humour.
This is a book that will have you glued to every page. There are about a hundred pages in the middle that might have felt a bit slow and I didn't particularly like how the book ended but overall it was an amazing story and the author more than made up for any flaws.
This is a book that aims to show us that art can take us away from the most difficult of situations.
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers for this ARC.

4.7 - more literary fiction than I'd normally pick up, but something about the prose really resonated with me; fascinating story, intriguing characters, and no idea where all of the cryptic clues were leading

Boy Swallows Universe is about Eli Bell, a boy growing up in the poorer outskirts of Brisbane, Australia. I was interested in it because I spent a month in the suburbs of Brisbane in 1994 and thought I might find familiar landscape.

At first it seems like maybe this is a typical coming of age novel, until you realize Eli's brother only speaks by drawing words with his finger, and that the parental figures the brothers live with (Mom and boyfriend) deal heroin. At that point the novel takes a turn toward Vietnamese drug wars, machetes and missing limbs, mysterious rooms, crime reporters, and estranged fathers. .
The style of writing made me question everything - is Gus alive, does the room exist, is time linear, does everything that happened have an upside down calculator word - but after I finished it I wasn't clear the author intended to deter me in that way. But there is a level of surreality to it that felt confusing when you read the afterword, where the author says he basically wanted to write about his childhood and this is it.
.
I didn't know about heroin in Australia, but did some reading about it after finishing the book. It felt like a different sort of crisis in that it happened in daylight, in suburbia, and to family members and neighbors, not just sequestered to inner cities.

The ratings are true.

When I first started this book I was a bit lost wondering why this book was rated so highly. But this book swallows you in. And slowly you enter into Eli’s life and his head and his heart.

The writing was excellent and the story kept me interested until the authors note where I found out that this book was really based on his life.

WOW.

What a story to tell. And what a telling of a story.

Eli & August are a wonderful duo that we get to follow around.
This book is filled with trauma, adventure, mystery, and a little bit of magic.
I really enjoyed the bulk of this.
I didn't much care for the ending, I would have liked more from it.
Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers for granting my wish.

The first few page of this book told me to strap in and get ready for a ride that would be a literary marvel. Confusing, staccato type sentences dotted the opening of this story but I’m so glad I held on and kept reading. I discovered a works I could not possibly relate to, that of a teenage boy in 1980’s Australia and his world of drug dealers, dysfunctional families, and crime. Yet I was compelled to keep reading and found a story that at its heart, was one that is relatable. The confusing beginning comes full circle by the end. Well done, Trent Dalton.

Boy Swallows Universe is a marvelous, gritty coming-of-age novel set in 1980s Australia. Debut novelist Trent Dalton has crafted an alluring and literary account of how two brothers grow up and even thrive despite their parents’ destructive habits. Chapter titles in this substantial (464 page) novel consists of three words: “Boy Writes Words”, “Boy Loses Luck”, “Boy Stirs Monster”, “Boy Steals Ocean”, “Boy Bites Spider”, “Girl Saves Boy”. Energetic, often poetic prose is rendered in first-person by protagonist Eli Bell. Full review to come.

What a troubling mess of writing. I really wanted to like it! The storyline seemed like a good one, but I just couldn’t follow the writing. Too bad.

Eli is growing up in a small Australian suburb in the 1980s. His mother is a junkie and in jail, his father is nowhere to be found, his stepfather is a drug dealer, and his older brother, August, is a mute genius. The only adult in his life is Slim, a former prisoner who holds the record for the most escapes.

"I truly love Slim because he truly loves August and me. Slim was hard and cold in his youth. He's softened with age. Slim always cares for August and me and how we're going and how we're going to grow up. I love him so much for trying to convince us that when Mum and Lyle are out for so long like this they are at the movies and not, in fact, dealing heroin purchased from Vietnamese restaurateurs."

For a 12-year-old, Eli has the mind and heart of an adult. Even though his life is completely chaotic, he craves normalcy—as much as he can get given the situation he's in. He wants to be a journalist, he wants to fall in love, and he wants to be a good man, better than those he's had in his life.

Life keeps getting in Eli's way. It's up to him to care for his brother and to battle a truly dangerous drug dealer, and then work to save his mum. Through it all, Eli sees that there are two paths to follow—the right and the wrong—and although the wrong may be the easier one to follow, he knows he'll never recover if he takes that path.

What's fascinating and eye-opening about Boy Swallows Universe is that Trent Dalton based it on his own childhood and his relationship with his mother. Even though I know people find themselves in really dangerous, sad situations, it's still a bit of a gut punch to realize how closely this crazy story mirrors real life. I didn't know that going into reading this book, so it gave it a dash of added poignancy upon reflection.

I found the characters and their relationships really endearing, but the narrative style of this book put me off. Part of it was the Australian dialect the characters used, and part was the truncated way some of the dialogue flowed. There were times I had to re-read some paragraphs just to be sure I knew what was happening, so that kept me feeling not quite connected.

There is a tremendous amount of heart and charm in Boy Swallows Universe, and some very memorable characters. I know that many people enjoyed this book more than I did, so if it sounds intriguing, definitely give it a shot. It's a thought-provoking, heart-warming, and disturbing story.

NetGalley and HarperCollins provided me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!