You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
wordsofclover 's review for:
Half Irish
by Peter J. S. Waugh, Aly Harte, Siobhan Dignan
Half Irish follows the adventures of Tyler Sontoro - an 18-year-old New York with an Irish mom and an Italian dad - as he has a once in a lifetime summer vacation to Ireland to visit his relatives, and he ends up falling in love in more ways than one.
This book started out really well for me. I actually liked that the story didn’t start with Tyler instantly travelling to Ireland. We get to see his life in New York, his friends, his relationship with his family, his crushes and how he works to save money for his trip. I liked that his mam and dad encouraged him to do it on his own, even though they could have easily paid and his strong relationship with them is great to see. His parents are very much in his life - no sign of absentee parents here!
Tyler is a very easy character to like. He’s very normal and very relatable. He’s not someone with some massive life problems, or relationships dramas or friendship upsets. He’s like every other teenager I know - just getting along, enjoying school. friends, family and a part-time job. He’s very earnest and always tries to do the right thing. Literally, the type of teenage boy that would help a grandma with her shopping, and one you could definitely bring home to her parents.
My one problem with Tyler was that sometimes he was written too much like a teenage boy. He actually sounded about 16 sometimes instead of 18, and was quite innocent in a lot of ways - particularly romantically. He also was written in a way that he actually used “LOL” and one time “ROFL” in actual spoken word sentences. I’ve never in my life heard someone say those out loud.
This book does suffer from text speak too in messages amongst the teenager characters which I know a lot of people, including myself, don’t like. AT 18 and 19 years old, I would presume Tyler and Tabitha would just spell normally.
And speaking of Tabitha, I honestly just didn’t really get why Tyler liked her so much. She was a very vanilla character (though in fairness, this is a very vanilla book too). I just couldn’t see the attraction, or why Tyler would be so head over heels so quickly.
I liked that this book brought up the subject of male depression, and how men tend to hide away their feelings and end up not dealing well alone. But with all the talk of Patrick being down, and coming close to severe suicidal thoughts, nothing was ever mentioned about him seeing a therapist which I would have liked.
Overall, this book was great in many ways but I did end up dropping a star mainly because it was too long. I think it could have been about 350 pages instead. By then I found myself not caring about the rest of the story anymore.
This book started out really well for me. I actually liked that the story didn’t start with Tyler instantly travelling to Ireland. We get to see his life in New York, his friends, his relationship with his family, his crushes and how he works to save money for his trip. I liked that his mam and dad encouraged him to do it on his own, even though they could have easily paid and his strong relationship with them is great to see. His parents are very much in his life - no sign of absentee parents here!
Tyler is a very easy character to like. He’s very normal and very relatable. He’s not someone with some massive life problems, or relationships dramas or friendship upsets. He’s like every other teenager I know - just getting along, enjoying school. friends, family and a part-time job. He’s very earnest and always tries to do the right thing. Literally, the type of teenage boy that would help a grandma with her shopping, and one you could definitely bring home to her parents.
My one problem with Tyler was that sometimes he was written too much like a teenage boy. He actually sounded about 16 sometimes instead of 18, and was quite innocent in a lot of ways - particularly romantically. He also was written in a way that he actually used “LOL” and one time “ROFL” in actual spoken word sentences. I’ve never in my life heard someone say those out loud.
This book does suffer from text speak too in messages amongst the teenager characters which I know a lot of people, including myself, don’t like. AT 18 and 19 years old, I would presume Tyler and Tabitha would just spell normally.
And speaking of Tabitha, I honestly just didn’t really get why Tyler liked her so much. She was a very vanilla character (though in fairness, this is a very vanilla book too). I just couldn’t see the attraction, or why Tyler would be so head over heels so quickly.
I liked that this book brought up the subject of male depression, and how men tend to hide away their feelings and end up not dealing well alone. But with all the talk of Patrick being down, and coming close to severe suicidal thoughts, nothing was ever mentioned about him seeing a therapist which I would have liked.
Overall, this book was great in many ways but I did end up dropping a star mainly because it was too long. I think it could have been about 350 pages instead. By then I found myself not caring about the rest of the story anymore.