Another masterpiece by a well loved author. From years of sadness on one page to the next page of tears of laughter.

Such a wonderful read! I so enjoyed this book, which catapults the reader into the narrow, bigoted world of 1940s Ireland with a life-shattering drama. It kick-starts the unusual saga (quite literally) and leads us through the enfolding decades to the present day with horror, humour and wit. I was totally hooked from the beginning and loved the twists and turns of the plot, however coincidental or implausible, which cleverly delayed full disclosure to the end. I laughed out loud at some of the dialogue and assertions of the narrator and was moved to tears at other points in the novel. A sparkling, well-written book, which I might even return to for a further read - praise indeed!

This is by far one of the most difficult reviews I ever had to write.
If you read the synopsis there is not much given about the struggle Cyril is going trough but it is really difficult to review this book without giving small away small things that might spoil parts of the story that would be nice to discover yourself. If this book caught your interest by just reading the synopsis just get a copy and read it. John Boyne is a great writer and this story will be worth it. If you want to know more and maybe get a tiny bit spoiled you can read the rest of this review.

This book is raw and emotional. The struggle Cyril is experiencing, finding his way in life, is real and it is clear that the author knows what he is talking about. Though the story covers Cyril his whole life (and a few extra years) and the speed is pretty high there is enough space to explain the laws and rules of the country and society. The influence this has on the decisions Cyril makes in his life and how much it hurts not being able to be yourself. What made it even more clear was the approach that live is happening and you have to make of it what you can within the boundaries. As we follow Cyril growing up having to deal with adolescence, finding a job, friends getting married and so on the struggle becomes even more clear.

Cyril is an easy character to love. Meeting him as a young boy and experiencing his journey growing up the loneliness of his childhood already makes you want to take him away and engulf him with love. He does make some decisions in his life I could not agree with as a reader but the anger at him only made me invested in him more. As you meet most other characters trough his eyes his emotions are mirrored in the readers liking or disliking a character. His adoptive parents are by far the most interesting characters and the relationship between Cyril and them and how they keep influencing the rest of his life would be worth a whole investigation for some psychiatrist.

The one thing that did bother me in the book was the coincidence of how Cyril and Catherine stayed connected. Not only in the city but even in other parts of the world.

Enjoyed this family saga of a girl forced to leave her home town in rural Ireland after becoming pregnant. It follows the life she makes for herself in Dublin, and how her path crosses with people from her past and her future. Her son meanwhile grows up knowing he is adopted, but not how close to his origins. Cleverly told with sympathetic characters. An critical indictment of Irish values and institutions

What an incredible book- the best I've read in a long time!
I cried, laughed out loud, was shocked and appalled and completely broke my heart all throughout this tremendous story of the life of Cyril Avery. The dialogue, so humorous at times, is wonderful.
So many emotions evoked - not least the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church along with the prejudice and injustice at gay people and the subject of AIDS - not only from the church but generally in society.
A well recommended read for 2018 - you won't regret it!

The restrictions placed by the Catholic Church upon rural communities in Ireland, is the shocking starting point for this exploration of life and love.

One individual is followed as he comes to terms with being adopted, lives as a gay man in a rigidly heterosexual community, and deals with a series of misunderstandings as a result. The scope of the novel moves to Amsterdam, New York and Eastern Europe, returning to Ireland for a rewarding conclusion.

At times laugh out loud, with a sensitive and accurate use of dialogue, this is a beautifully written exploration of one man's journey. Rewarding, enjoyable and yet sometimes very poignant. A rewarding read.

Where to start? Boyne is a remarkable author who draws the reader into his writing like a moth to a flame. The stigma if illegitimacy in Ireland and the problems that homosexuality can bring are explored over over the space of some 70 years. Cyril is the illegitimate son of Catherine and we follow his life through adoption to grave.
This is a long read but in the end very satisfying.

Brill book, really emotional, great to get into the life of the character to go through what he went through kept reading to the end couldn't put it down.

This is quite simply a stunning epic novel.

Boyne grabbed my attention from the devastating opening paragraph and I couldn't help but want to find out what happened to the characters - the main character had even yet to be born!

Boyne depicts the treatment of homosexuals in Ireland, Amsterdam and America and there was a moment of brutal violence which has stayed with me not least for its violence but also the injustice of it. How people can hate others for living different lives is still beyond me.

I loved the historical context given as it helps to place the attitudes, difficulties and triumphs of the characters. I shouldn't have been surprised at Boyne's writing, having loved The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, but this is my first adult fiction by him. I have since bought this in hardback so I can admire it on my shelves and bought further adult titles from Boyne.

This will get you thinking and you will definitely miss the characters as you turn that final page.

This was one of my favourite books of the last year. I found it was very easy to read and flowed nicely from one era to another. In fact it was one of those books I didn’t want to end. Cyril’s life was depicted so well, with all the heartaches and high spots well illustrated. The humour was an integral part of the story and made the characters come to life.

I’ll now look for more by John Boyle as I had only ever read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

My favourite book of the year! I cannot say how much I loved this story. I was so sad when it ended and not just because the ending was sad. (although it was in a poignant sort of way).
Beautifully written, no words I can say will do this novel justice so I will keep it short and sweet.
This is a novel that can educate all of us on the social inequalities of Ireland but also highlights the plight of gay men and the injustice that they endured not so long ago.
Told from different perspectives and characters throughout a generation of intertwined lives, this novel is breathtakingly honest, hard to read in places but ultimately uplifting.
Well done John Boyne!

What an excellent snapshot of life in Ireland from the 50's onward. I loved how the story was developed as the years went on and the thread that kept it connected to the beginnings of the story and completed it, at the end. The main character made me smile, feel sad and happy at the same time and regretful of the attitudes of the human race towards each other and things that maybe don't fit 'the norm'. I couldn't put it down once I'd started and I loved particularly, the ending. A definite must read.

Cyril tells the reader his life story, displaying how he and his mother cope with prejudices against illegitimacy and homosexuality. Brilliantly written with both wit and sadness, he describes his road to happiness. I can see this as a TV series and/or a film. Loved it.

I was delighted to find a new writer who could tell a good tale and write so descriptively. I loved this from start to finish and the way the Irish culture of several decades was depicted. There is just the right amount of light and shade and it is a story you can laugh and cry over.. Well worth a read.

This is an absolutely remarkable book.

I went into it blind; I knew there was a bit of buzz around it but had no idea of the plot. To be honest, if I had read a summary, I might not have been overly keen - "the difficulties of growing up gay in 1950s/60s Ireland" sounds like a fairly heavy read. However, whilst the book has tragedy, it is also one of the funniest things I've ever read. And I don't mean wistful smile funny, I mean laugh out loud funny!

The story focuses on Cyril Avery, a boy given up for adoption due to his mother's shameful situation (in 1940s Ireland) of being unmarried. Cyril is adopted by a well-off eccentric couple who offer him little by way of love. As Cyril grows, he realises he thinks about boys an awful lot, especially his friend, the memorable Julian, who he becomes romantically obsessed by. The book charts Cyril's life as he comes to terms with his sexuality, makes massive mistakes and deals with the ups and downs that life brings.

The sections focusing on Cyril's childhood and adolescence are particularly fun. His adoptive parents are both memorable characters and used to great comedic effect - they seem to have been brewed up by a mix of Dickens and Dahl. Meanwhile, Julian, the perfect object of Cyril's affections is another wonderful character, pulling Cyril into many adventures, including a memorably hilarious double-date.

Amongst the laughs of course there are serious themes in the book and the horrific life of a gay man in Ireland of this era is brought home in stark fashion. Cyril's only way to find anything resembling affection is to tour public parks and toilets for seedy couplings, all the while running the risk of arrests and beatings at the hands of the police. His life offers no shortage of drama and there are several very moving episodes in the book.

The dialogue crackles throughout the story. At times naturalistic and believable and at other times snapping along like a high-end sit-com, it is always immensely readable.

The Heart's Invisible Furies is a heart-breaking, hilarious, epic that I struggled to put down. It's characters will live with me for a long time and even thought this is only January, I think I may have just read my book of the year. Well done John Boyne on a marvellous achievement.

This book is primarily set in Ireland and visits other countries before returning to Ireland. Basically it is about life as a gay man and the prejudices he faces comparing different attitudes and periods in history. This is a well written book which explores issues many people will not have experienced . It is done with a sense of realism, is hilarious and sad and it is very easy to get annoyed with the main character and then feel sorry for him.
I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't this. an enlightening read which makes you laugh and cry.

I really enjoyed this book. It is the life story of Cyril Avery, born in 1945, and growing up in Ireland. He knows from early on that he is a homosexual, which was still illegal in Ireland. The story follows him through his childhood with his unusual adoptive parents, a marriage, and escape to Amsterdam where he finds love at last. On to New York in the 80's and the AIDS epidemic, and finally back to Ireland where he eventually is reunited with his birth mother. This book is both funny and incredibly moving. I really recommend it. Thanks to NetGalley for a preview copy.

Forced to leave her hometown under a cloud of scandal, Catherine Goggin finds herself pregnant and alone in Dublin. She knows, at sixteen years old, she cannot give her child the start he deserves, and so she entrusts him to a nun to find him a better life.

Cyril Avery is continually reminded by his parents that he is not a real Avery. Adopted at birth he’s never felt he truly belongs in the family. He is looked after but never loved.

And so begins one man’s desperate journey to find his place in the world. A world in which he is not be accepted for who he is.

But, can Cyril find the courage to meet the world head on?

I loved this book and struggled with it in equal measures. My emotions for Cyril were so mixed, pity, loathing and love all fought each other, and I often found myself putting this book down for lengthy periods of time due to this.

Told in 7-year increments between the years of 1945 and 2015 this story covers the many obstacles and dangers growing up as a homosexual in Ireland. Deeply closeted for fear of his life and in love with his best friend, Cyril is forced to cruise public toilets and dingy parks for furtive rendezvous’ and endure traumatic gay bashing resulting in a string of bad decision. Cyril’s character becomes more affable as the story heads into the height of the AIDS epidemic, and I felt at this point my warmest towards him then I had throughout the whole saga. Boyne is careful not to come across as too angry or miserable and inserts, in an often-discordant manner, points of hilarity.

This was an epic story, hard-hitting with some very gritty underlying tones. Unfortunately, it lost a star with me as it felt longwinded and drawn out and at times I found myself skipping a little of the unnecessary waffle.

This is a book that will stay with you long after reading. From it's heart-breaking opening scene through tragedy, confusion, love, loss and hope to final resolution, this is a novel to savour. It tells of the life of Cyril Avery, adopted as a baby in Ireland in the 1940s and who slowly realises that he is not like other boys. As the decades roll, and Cyril's chaotic, confused early life brings consequences, we see him slowly reach maturity but not without much heartache and suffering. Cyril is witty and self-effacing but he faces terrible prejudice as a homosexual, physical attack, sees a lover killed and the bleak devastation of Aids, and is forced to experience an underworld of vice simply because of what he is. I loved this book, laughed out loud at times, cried at least once, but was very glad I took the journey through the decades and continents with Cyril.

At 16 Catherine Goggin is thrown out of her village in Western Ireland because she is pregnant and unmarried. Giving up her baby for adoption she starts work in the Dail tearoom but is haunted by the events of that time. Her son is adopted by a banker and his novelist wife and named Cyril. From an early age he realises that he is attracted to other men/boys but in staunchly Catholic and conservative Ireland homosexuality is against the law. Throughout his life Cyril makes a series of decisions which have repercussions until towards the end this life he finds peace and also the family he really craves.

This book is a joy from start to finish. It flips between comedy and pathos yet retains a depth of passion below the surface which means that it is hard to categorise. Whilst easy to read and laugh out loud funny at times it also has a strong set of statements to make about repression, homosexuality, AIDs and family. Politically savvy yet wildly entertaining, this is a novelist at the height of his powers and driven by a need to tell a story.