A review by cjfooks
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

I absolutely love books that romanticise the mundane parts about life, in a way that changes your perspective on your life, and forces you to appreciate the little things. 
Although the main character in this book has, very very far from a simple, mundane life, Trent Dalton perfectly encompasses this feeling. 
I think the only way to describe its genre, is a fictional (well…’based-on’) biography written like a thriller-poem. 
The main character’s personality, and the way he thinks about things, is so uniquely beautiful in a way that I don’t think I’ll experience again. 
There’s so much tradegy in Boy Swallows Universe, but also so much of every other emotion, and a constant reminder of how strong the human spirit is. 
It can be very very brutal in parts, and feels extremely real and too close to home, yet there are parts that feel dissociative too. 
These dissociations when at the start and towards the middle of the book, feel ornamental, and not necessarily a plot point), but as the story comes to a close, most of them circle back. And I absolutely love when a book unexpectedly and cleverly does this. 
My only fault for it would be that, although little plots are always happening one after the other (similar to a biography) , there are parts of the book where you lose sense of an overall plot and wonder where it’s taking you.
I would definitely recommend this and read it again, although I’ll stress that it’s equally a comforting book, and a hard read, sometimes strangely at the same time. 
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