Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

Ok, let's do your stupid idea.

How many times in our life have we said that to a mate. Normally the ideas are stupid, but often with epic or hilarious results.

Here Patrick Freyne recounts some of his stupid ideas - a book that will have you feeling pretty much every emotion you can imagine. Well worth the read.

4 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Special thanks to Netgalley for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is a light hearted and heart warming book. I laughed several times, and enjoyed reading this relatable book.

OK, Let's Do Your Stupid Idea by Patrick Freyne was one of my most anticipated releases of the year and it didn't disappoint, even though the pandemic delayed publication day.

Written with the humour, wit and warmth we've come to expect from Freyne's Irish Times columns and features, the essays in this collection are at turns laugh out loud funny, poignant, and thought-provoking.

Freyne shares stories about touring with his band, working as a carer, being a dishwasher on the set of Braveheart, and what it's like to be a journalist. He also writes frankly about family, grief, mental health, and being childless due to circumstances rather than choice.

OK, Let's Do Your Stupid Idea is an engaging essay collection that earns its place among the best writing Ireland has to offer. I can't wait to see what Patrick Freyne writes next.

It's taken me some time to get around to reading Patrick Freyne's book, but I'm glad I finally have. Within the current crop of personal essay writing to have come out of Ireland, Freyne's voice is unique - inflected with humour throughout and utterly self-deprecating. 'OK, Let's Do Your Stupid Idea' has at its heart a warmth which non-fiction's Joan Didion emulators could never hope to match. I am excited to see what he does next.

This book was amusing and a joy to read. In fact, there were parts which were laugh-out-loud funny.

I loved the anecdotes and could very much relate to the author’s mother and how she handled her children.

This book is a light-hearted, fun read and provides a great little escape from real-life for a short while.

Thoroughly enjoyed this one!

A selection of memoir - essays from an ex musician, Irish times journalist, the stories are entertaining and at times poignant and sad. There is a beautiful essay about working as a carer and what he learned about humanity as a result, which people in power could do with reading to ensure that carer's get paid properly. The author is an engaging writer and writes well about his various escapades.

I was unfamiliar with the work of Patrick Freyne (sorry Patrick!) and chose this book as I was attracted by the title (which is a motto to live by) and the need for some light relief in these dark times. Whilst Patrick presents a lot of laugh out loud moments, of the type you are almost forced to read aloud and share (the parachute jump is a particular highlight) he also shares some touching and poignant incidents and has insightful observations. Excellent writing of a life well lived.

Funny, honest and relatable. Light enough to pick up and put down, but not pithy enough to forget. Thank you for a trip through your stupid ideas with warmth. joy. love and laughter.

<i> Neat Narratives are generally lies </i>

One gets to know about someone famous and then read their autobiography to know them better. In this case, I had no idea who this person was and I got to know about this crazy adventurous person after reading this book. Why? The book title promised, if nothing, he would have a sense of humor.

The essays aren't really chronological and not many of the ideas are really stupid. The Irish upbringing is replete with crazy family members, singing, rebellions, death and friends. Sure, they may be common across any upbringing, but you would be surprised if you don't find them in any Irish author's writing.

Patrick Freyne's funny bones are intact and there were some parts that are laugh out loud. Some of the seeming stupid ideas read like a funny blog post.
Sample this:
<i>"'Tough but fair', they always add, which makes me picture him punching them in the nose but then giving them an appreciative pat on the head."</i>

The funny parts are spaced out and some of the serious content, serious enough to leave a lump in your throat, are squeezed in. The philosophy into which Freyne meanders or the crazy adventures don't seem forced despite the in-credulousness.

I mostly liked the writing. In the preface the author's friend gives him candid feedback "It seems like any other autobiography" to set the expectation bar low. And hence smartly the author exceeds it.

Colorful read.

Note: I would like to thank Netgalley and Penguin books for providing the ARC of the book

A brilliant collection of essays that made me laugh and think.
I liked the style of writing, the humor and the story that were told.
It's recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I love this. It was so endearing, I could not but it down, the protagonist was wonderful. Highly recommend.

Every time I see an article by Patrick Freyne in The Irish Times, I feel he can’t possibly keep up the wit, insight and arresting images that characterize his output. But I am, thankfully, consistently, wrong - he always delivers, and does so in trumps (a lazy phrase he'd never use) in OK, Let's Try Your Stupid Idea.

Many years ago, Joseph O'Connor wrote a series of series of essays featuring a gormless but lovable Irishman facing modern Ireland and this collection strikes similar spots in the brain.

It is a rare pleasure to laugh out loud while reading, but Freyne has the gift of making the reader do so, regularly and most frequently at his own expense. From a military background, he spent a large part of his pre-journalist life in the creative, but financially unrewarding world of indie bands and pirate radio stations and he writes hilariously of those worlds. In the unlikely event that I were commissioning articles for inflight magazines, I'd pounce on Gigantic (What I Did on My Summer Holidays 1995) a particularly LOLly but irrestible account of a young Freyne and a bunch of mates in Bremen. It would take heavy turbulence to distract from reading it.

He is also able to tackle serious themes of the death of a friend and childlessness in a marriage where he and his wife wanted children.

The themes of the other essays are in the blurb.

The only fault, a very minor one, is that the background detail is repeated sometimes, as if each essay had to stand independently.

I would have a high opinion of anyone who gave me this book as a present.

A definite 5-star.

I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't love Patrick Freyne's essays. His writing treads the really fine line between touching and startling and stupidly funny, and you never know which to expect from an essay. Though it shouldn't matter when reading such a collection, he seems like a genuine person, and probably the funniest person you've never met. I think what I love most about the humour is that while it is clever and pokes a lot of fun, it is often at himself and he is never cruel.

I was laughing from the first pages, but it really hits its stride a few essays in.
Gigantic (What I Did on My Summer Holidays 1995) is a silly, warm fun ode to bring young and, as Freyne puts it, "helpess but entitled" as three friends take Breman - with absolutely no plan as to do this, no idea how to look after themselves, and just no sense at all. This set me up nicely for the heart wrenching shock of "How to Make Music and Influence No One", which manages to be so funny, but yet so sad and bittersweet by the end. It is about Freyne's time in a punk band and running a pirate radio station. He laughs fondly at their naming songs after people they didn't really know about, their sending tapes to high up music executives, his putting on accents in interviews while never really knowing why, and their full blown arguments about the optics of opportunities they hadn't even been given. The essay changes tone most importantly with the death of a friend a reader even feels close to by this stage (only a third through the book) but it also changes slowly as Freyne reflects on why young people are so drawn to bands, how bands are like surrogates families when you leave home,how they give you roots. He writes that when he listens back to these interviews and these albums, there is a part of himself he can't quite reach, as he is no longer part of that "hive mind", and is such a different person now. An incredible essay and one that upset me just as I wasn't prepared for this emotional punch to the gut, but one I'll remember for years.

This set the tone for a lot of the later essays in the collection, including one or two I had to briefly stop reading. His essay on not having children himself despite his love for them and how he has accepted that, as well as another where he recounts his time working in a care home, the humour and the heartache of it, blew me away because they aren't subjects I'm used to reading about by men. All the essays have humour in them, but they range perfectly from silly and laugh out loud to poignant and thoughtful.

I read this over several weeks and I never wanted it to end. I can't wait to buy this for myself and so many other people.

At the beginning, let me say this is not a book I would usually pick up, but I needed something light hearted. To an extent, I enjoyed reading this book. It made me occasionally laugh, occasionally agree, occasionally think about my own life. I can see a lot of people relating to these stories.
However, despite this, occasionally, I wanted to flick through pages and I was questioning why these bits have to be part of the book. Probably not the right book for me.

OK, Let's Do Your Stupid Idea by Patrick Freyne is a collection of memories, anecdotes, essays and articles that largely focus on the author's childhood and teenage years. As a regular contributor to the Irish Times Newspaper and an occasional talking head on various T.V. and radio shows , his style is familiar to me and I knew that I would enjoy his writing . I was not disappointed, I found plenty to chuckle about, as well as parts that were incredibly moving, most notably his description of the time he spent working as a carer. The writing has plenty of character though the structure is a little all over the place , so at times it feels like we are going in circles . Overall I enjoyed the book as something to dip in and out of.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Patrick Feyne’s collection of essay is absolutely brilliant. With empathy, insight, and a great warmth of humour, Feyne shares accounts of his life while commenting on the joy that comes from saying yes to things.
Covering topics from being a carer to skydiving, it is by turns hilarious and deeply moving. He touches on grief, youth, the importance of music, and what it is to be childless – all with wisdom, humour, and a deep sense of empathy.
Highly recommended.

I was delighted to receive an advance copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I love Patrick Freyne's writing in the Irish Times and was really looking forward to reading this. While it was a pleasant read I found myself as another reviewer said fast forwarding through anecdotes as the stories did not really interest me. I would read more however by this author as I like his humour and how he looks at things.

Publisher’s Synopsis:

Patrick Freyne has tried a lot of stupid ideas in his life. Now, in his scintillating debut, he is here to tell you about them: like the time (aged 5) he opened a gate and let a horse out of its field, just to see what would happen; or the time (aged 19) he jumped out of a plane for charity, even though he didn’t much care about the charity and was sure he’d end up dead; or the time (aged old enough to know better) he used a magazine as a funnel for fuel when the petrol cap on his band’s van broke.

He has also learned a few things: about the power of group song; about the beauty of physically caring for another human being; about childlessness; about losing friends far too young. Life as seen through the eyes of Patrick Freyne is stranger, funnier and a lot more interesting than life as we generally know it. Like David Sedaris or Nora Ephron, he creates an environment all his own – fundamentally comic, sometimes moving, always deeply humane. OK, Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea is a joyous reading experience from an instantly essential new writer.

Review: This book just wasn’t for me. I originally thought it was fiction, but embarrassingly half way through discovered it was not. Freyne has many incredible stories to tell, and they are great stories, but for almost every chapter I found myself wanting to skip through a lot of it. I know that is Freyne’s writing style, and it’s not a bad thing! It just wasn’t for me. It definitely has a lot of character, and Freyne’s personality shines through in his writing, which brings a refreshing change compared to some other non-fiction literature.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Books UK for a copy of this book in exchange for my review

Rated 3/5 stars

Not a book I would usually pick up, but I am trying to broaden my reading this year. And I'm glad I got approved for this one. It was a slow burner, but I enjoyed it overall, but I don't think this book will be everyone's preference. I found quite a few moments in the book funny and loved the dry humour, which is why I don't think this book is for everyone. I've found myself enjoying memoirs quite a lot recently and this was no exception. I loved the personal feeling to it, like one of those conversations you'd end up accidentally having with a stranger who tells you their life story. I found myself laughing out louds at quite a few parts of the book. But also feeling quite sad in other parts, but I won't post spoilers. It isn't a fast paced book but I definitely would recommend it to the right kind of reader. I found myself drawn in pretty immediately and overall gave it 4 stars. Thank you Netgalley, I really enjoyed it