Rating: 
Summary: A Dangerous Time Of Life
Review: Roddy Doyle is an accomplished writer of populist fiction and one of the greatest exponents of street dialogue around. He isn't up to the task he has set himself here. His central character is a one-dimensional cartoon whose 'Dan Dare' antics are sadly at odds with the grim reality of 1916. It is a cliche that many writers of pop fiction decide at middle age to write 'something important'. It is almost always a disaster - as indeed it is here. What is particularly unfortunate from Doyle's point of view is that he has publicly trapped himself into writing a trilogy and is now tasked with carting this imbecile across the Atlantic and next depositing him in Chicago. William Boyd did something very similiar in 'The New Confessions' but managed it in one, tongue-in-cheek volume. Doyle's earnestly menopausal grab for the stars, coupled with this atrocious character suggest the going could be hard for the next two rounds. Unless he has actually typed the first sentence of 'Henry - just when you thought it was safe on Lake Shore Drive', I suggest he start scouting North Dublin for a 'Snapper' style yarn. This is what he does best and it appears as though he is intent on discovering it the hard way.
Rating: 
Summary: A new frontier for Ireland's greatest Guiness...
Review: Doyle resembles Guinesss...very addictive and obviously, Irish to the core. While the Women who walked into Doors (btw, Ipolan's comment that the Woman...is a "lovely little book" demonstrates either my original theory that Americans cannot fully appreciate British literature - no insult, as I cannot completely appreciate American literature - or that he/she has not read the book, as The Woman who walked into Doors is not lovely at all - it is superficially about a battered wife - and not little, it is towering in genius and presence), was without doubt his most difficult book (for him & us) and his most emotive, but A Star called Henry gives Doyle a massive challenge. You get the impression, with his other books, aside from the Woman..., that they were relatively easy for him to write, with such familiar surroundings and subjects. A Star...takes him before his time and into the partially foreign mentality of Henry Smart. If you are a Doyle virgin, I'll cut to the chase... You want humour and humanity, read the Barrytown trilody. You want a fresh perspective on a hackneyed subject, read Brownbread and War. You want one of the very few realistic and effective first person narratives by a person of the opposite sex of the first person, read the Woman who walked into doors. You want a beautiful, endearing, deeply saddening portrayal of childhood and domestic violence, read Paddy Clarke Ha ha ha. You want Roddy Doyle's most adventurous and demanding effort yet, read A Star called Henry. You won't regret it. Down that Guiness, baby!!
Rating:
Summary: Patrick Geoghegan looks great on the cover......
Review: Any book which Patrick Geoghegan decides to grace with his image has to be a classic.
Rating: 
Summary: A really good read...
Review: This book is a skillful blend of the historically accurate and the purely fictional. At times while reading this highly enjoyable novel I was reminded of the movie 'Forest Gump'. The main character, Henry Smart, is located by the author at some of the key moments in Irish history at the time of the insurrection in 1916 and the following civil war. The book does however start slowly giving the impression of drifting forward in essoteric fashion rather than grabbing the readers attention. Stick with it though, it turns out to be well worth it. Forget you politics (if you have any) and enjoy the story...
Rating:
Summary: unputdownable
Review: If you liked roddy doyle before, you'll love him after reading this book. If you have read him before but didn't like him, read it anyway, it's quite different to his others. If you've never read him, make this a place to start.
Rating:
Summary: better and better
Review: Roddy Doyle started out as a talented, extremely promising young novelist with The Commitments. He got better with his follow-up, The Snapper. Then came The Van, the final story of his Barrytown Trilogy and now he was a major novelist. The movies of those three novels were coming out, each better than the last, and he was writing the screenplay adaptations too. But he wasn't finished. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha blazed out in 1993 and went on to win the Booker Prize, a true, shattering masterpiece. He took a step backward with the lovely little The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, but it was a great book nontheless. And now . . . A Star Called Henry is a wonderful book, a stunning, stirring fictionalized history of hard times and revolutionary activity being run by savages and monsters fighting an arrogant and oppressive dictatorship. It is hard, it is fast, it is extremely violent and is only part one of another proposed trilogy. There likely will not be a finer novel released this year.
Rating:
Summary: There is a problem
Review: The problem is: If you are not familiar with 20th Century Irish history, you will be lost reading this book when Part 1 ends. Doyle provides the reader with no historical background and writes the book assuming that the reader is all ready well-versed in Irish history. I also had trouble visualizing Ireland, the places, buildings, streets, and the battle scenes, which I attribute to Doyle's lack of description and to my lack of Irish knowledge.
Rating:
Summary: A Genius Called Roddy Doyle
Review: The man behind `Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha' and `The Barrytown Trilogy', Roddy Doyle, is capable of working more magic than we readers can ever imagine, and `A Star Called Henry' is a testament to his ability as a historian and a storyteller. Never has a miserably poor Irish childhood like Henry Smart's been described in more beautiful prose, replete with imagery of dead siblings reborn as stars. Henry Smart's boyhood in the dirty, crime-infested streets of Dublin is humorous, touching and often sad. Orphaned not by the death of his parents but by poverty and abandonment, Henry leads his younger brother Victor into a life of crime; hunger and desperation being their main motivation for `fecking' bread and killing cows with blades hidden in caps. The hard life led by the children is tempered with the tenderness the brothers feel for each other. Henry and Victor's attempt at `getting an education' is seriously funny, but the gaiety does not last long. Victor dies of tuberculosis, and this bitter experience shapes many of Henry's beliefs and ideals as an adult. By the time he is 14, Henry is a handsome young hulk in the Irish Republican Army. In the Army, he finds love, respect, but also betrayal. At once a love story and a history of the Irish Rebellion, `A Star Called Henry' is a novel that is all substance and no filler.
Rating: 
Summary: did not enjoy
Review: Personnaly I did not like this novel. I found myself wishing it would end just so I could say I read it (still never finished). It was hard for me to read it. But, I got this recomendation from a cousin of mine who was raving about it. I think I am one of the few people who did not enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: A successful marriage of fiction and history
Review: This book is a very successful attempt to portray Irish history in the early part of the century via the experiences and perceptions of a fictional character. You come away from it feeling that you have both read a good, well-written novel and learned something about history. The subject matter is absorbing, both in the early part of the novel, where one sees how abject the poverty was of Dublin's poorest inhabitants, and later on, where the focus moves to the characters who got the British out of most of Ireland, and the way in which they did it. Doyle also does some interesting things with language and structure in the book, which moves it past the common herd of novels and give it some interest on the literary level as well. All in all it's a very satisfying book, and I look forward to reading the rest of the trilogy.
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