Rating: 
Summary: A splendidly written and ambitious novel.
Review: This book has everything anyone could want from a novel. It is funny, adventurous, thought provoking and extremely well written. Henry Smart is a boy who grows up in the Dublin slums amidst poverty and neglect and takes part in the Irish rebellion against England. We view the rebellion and its mythic heroes through his eyes and learn that the uprising, and new Irish nation that it fostered, was not fought for all Irish but for the few Irish who lusted after power, stature, and wealth. I think this is an amazing novel and I can't wait for the next two installments of this trilogy.
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Summary: Fighting, sweating, bleeding, stealing Henry Smart
Review: What is young Henry Smart to do, with a mother who searches for a non-existent past and a father who ends futures with his wooden leg, with parents chasing after fantasies? He fights, steals, pushes, beats, bleeds, sweats, and yes, *ucks, his way into life. Unlike most protagonists, Henry is not chasing after a dream-instead Roddy Doyle presents us with a character chasing after life. Henry wants to feel the grit of life; he wants to be fully aware of "living." Doyle's challenge in this novel is that his main character must always be larger than life because he is trying to encompass all life (including death). In Henry's quest for life, we watch him tumble his way through an impoverished and lonely childhood in Dublin. We watch Henry explode into the Irish rebellion of the Teens and Twenties: wiping off the dust of the General Post Office, shaking off the blood of the "spies" that he killed. Henry is the definition of active; he lives and blusters and loves and hates-true to the cause of rebellion but never an idealist. Having watched his mother slowly decay and his father abruptly disappear because of idealism, he remains rooted in the physical.We usually think of history being made by the visionaries who can turn that vision into action-Alexander the Great envisions a great Empire and sets about to make it reality. Henry Smart is the opposite-for him, reality is his vision, his driving force. While Henry's reality matches the vision of the rebels around him, Henry is fully in the midst of history: Collins, De Valera, Connolly, Pearse-names that were and are celebrated in song and myth. His reality of a life that encompasses death matches the vision of these Irish heroes for a time-but peace breaks out and what was a seemingly united rebellion fractures. None of the fractions want or need Henry-not the statesmen of the new Irish Republic, who want respectability and clean practices; not the underbosses of the old IRB, who are splitting into the single-minded IRA and local strong men.
Rating: 
Summary: Bargaining for Live
Review: Son of murderous one-legged bouncer, Henry Smart is born into a world where might makes right. Named after his dead brother who was named after his father, Henry Smart grows up struggling to make his name his own. His mother won't let him forget his brother, a star called Henry. And the only memory he has of his father--who fell in love with a name and created a person to fit that image...twice--is one contaminated by the scent of human blood and grime woven into the fabric of his father's shirt and cleansed by the Dublin's sewage. Father rescues son by throwing him over a wall and plunging him into the Swan River. Father, the absent patriarch, will have no home rule. After Easter, 1916, Henry Smart's name is known too well. He's become a living legend valorized in song. History has been made, but as Henry Smart alias Brian O'Linn, alias Fergus Nash, finds out, has yet to be endured-homelessness, bribery that gets one hired or fired, torture if caught by the enemy. While living with the effects of creating a part of Irish history, Henry also begins to unearth his family history. He buys information about his father from his maternal grandmother, Granny Nash. A book, written by a woman, for a fact. By the time Henry has pieced together his father's story, Granny Nash has the largest library of women authors in Dublin ... and Henry has already become unwittingly adept at his father's trade in the disposal of human bodies. His father whispered, Gandon says Hello. He pins notes to lapels that say, Killed as a spy by the IRA His father worked for a politician, and so does he. And ultimately both of their names end up on a hit list.
Rating: 
Summary: I loved Roddy Doyle
Review: Until I read this book. Here we have Rambo and Romeo all wrapped up in the person of a totally unbelievable fourteen year old boy. Can this be the same guy who so beautifully captured Paddy Clark? If this is indeed a triology, wake me when it's over. Roddy, drag the Van from the surf. Give me Paddy at fifteen or Paula at fifty. Henry is a lot of things, however, smart is not one of them.
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Summary: Vivid Sprawling Gorgeous -- and Ultimately Uninvolving
Review: A Star Called Henry seethes with energy and highly charged prose. There are a number of set piece events -- Henry's escape from the "rozzers" into the sewers of Dublin -- that are genuinely thrilling. And there are some that take us nowhere and add up to little -- the pointless and repetitive violence in the books second half, for example. There are two big problems with the book: the central figure of Henry never, imo, coalesces into a convincing character and as a result you find yourself watching from a cool uninvolved distance. And second, and most frustrating, the historical material is hard to follow. It seems to me that the book is intended for readers more familar than most with the events in Ireland of the 'Teens and 20s; Irish readers iow. I would suggest readers of this book boning up on the "Troubles" before they start reading.
Rating:
Summary: A Star Indeed
Review: This is a beautifully written novel! Although Henry's exploits are unbelievable in many places, the book sweeps the reader along through the brutal, unsympathetic, and inhumane life of a poverty-stricken kid/man following in his father's unfortunate footsteps (oops footstep!). The only reason I don't think this fine book earns five stars is that its portrayal of women is absolutely weird. If attractive Henry met one more lady desperate for "the ride", I might have gagged. Roddy Doyle needs to put more thought into his women characters.
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Summary: An Unsentimental Irish Ballad
Review: This is an extraordinary ballad of Ireland during the first quarter of the 20th Century. As Doyle points out early on in the book, all the "real songs" come from "the people." Written from the point of view of Henry Smart, a Dublin street "guttie" turned IRA rebel (and perhaps the most self-aware infant in literature since "A Tin Drum"), it demonstrates a deep love for the Irish people without the sentimentality of much of the literature of the period. Doyle commingles magical fictional characters with figures from the Irish Rebellion like James Connolly and Michael Collins in a way that illuminates the history. Ultimately, Henry--never one to embrace the goal of making "Dublin a jewel again" in any event--concludes that life in the Republic is no different from life in colonial Ireland, except that the controlling authorities have reverted to Gaelic spellings of their surnames. I think this is Doyle's best work yet, and I look forward to the next volume of the trilogy.
Rating:
Summary: Utterly Absorbing And Masterfully Written
Review: Rarely would I give a 5 star rating to anything that didn't move me beyond my ordinary reality. But, this novel, and, this writer (first time reading Doyle), deserve every bit of praise that I could muster up. Doyle is astonishing. I can't recall anyone that can write like he does. He spins an historical yarn that is epic and personal and universal. There are very few profound truths in this book, exept for the insight that soldiers are really businessmen, and, poverty is the seed of revolution, but Doyle can create a world that you can enter, smell, almost feel his characters, and, most of all, empathize with them. You want to know what's going to happen to them more than you want to know if this is historically correct. I'm sure it's not too far from the truth. My discovery of Doyle is certainly a revelation. I can't wait to read some of his other works.
Rating: 
Summary: Doyle's attempt at republican revision becomes surreal
Review: The first third of the book contains some of Roddy Doyle's best writing, but as the main character grows up the events portrayed become ever more fantastical. My interest in Roddy Doyle stems from his ability to portray the harsh realities of daily life in modern Ireland with a touch of humour but by creating a 'mythical hero' in this novel I find that I cannot believe the story as representing life in Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century. As the novel does not work for me as a fantasy (check out the legends of Finn MacCool or Cuchulain if you want some real Irish heroics) it leaves little to recommend other than Doyle's gift for dialogue which is better represented in his earlier works. Also I don't think his historical revisionism of Irish republicanism during 1900-1920 is as ground-breaking as some people think. There were obviously left and right elements to the events of 1916-1922 and all the participants had pretty much the same human foibles as the rest of the human race. Essentially this novel fails to convince me as to its historicality or to entertain me as a fantasy or to involve me with its characters. Doyle has done better before and hopefully will do better again - perhaps Henry Smart will get killed off early in the forthcoming second part of this trilogy.
Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking, Emotional & Engrossing
Review: This is a terrific book. I gave it five stars despite some disappointment in the ending. I hasten to add that the ending suffers only by comparison with the rest of the book, which is utterly superb. This book is not for the faint of heart as Doyle generates an upheaval of emotional contradictions. He cuts your heart out with a jagged edge, then replaces it with childlike tenderness and humor. Hold on tight for an entertaining emotional rollercoaster ride.
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