Review of 'Leonard and Hungry Paul' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
I read this because I am, like Paul, hungry for interaction with real people who present themselves as they are, and because I am, like Leonard, bereaved and cooped up for years because people felt they would die or bring death onto others if they smiled at me. Not much opportunity for getting out in the world and not much reward for doing so. I'm glad Mr. Hession knows people like us exist, even in real life, I wish I knew more who are.
Review of 'LEONARD AND HUNGRY PAUL' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
In the words of Grace (Hungry Paul’s sister) “Well now, that was nice”. When I tweeted that I was about to start this book it got a huge amount of love from so many people, I was quite surprised…can it really be that good that people were jealous of me reading it for the first time? The book really is that special, I am now officially in the gang who will get jealous when somebody else gives this a go. A friend of mine saw the book and asked what it was about, I was at a loss for words to describe it, I settled on “It’s a really nice book about two lads who still live with their parents, these two lads are the wisest people you’ll ever meet” and then I said she should get her own copy and snatched my one back.
Leonard is the more outgoing …
In the words of Grace (Hungry Paul’s sister) “Well now, that was nice”. When I tweeted that I was about to start this book it got a huge amount of love from so many people, I was quite surprised…can it really be that good that people were jealous of me reading it for the first time? The book really is that special, I am now officially in the gang who will get jealous when somebody else gives this a go. A friend of mine saw the book and asked what it was about, I was at a loss for words to describe it, I settled on “It’s a really nice book about two lads who still live with their parents, these two lads are the wisest people you’ll ever meet” and then I said she should get her own copy and snatched my one back.
Leonard is the more outgoing of the two (only by a bit), recently his world has been turned upside down by events and he is struggling to cope with these changes. Hungry Paul is far quieter and so very wise, he offers some very sage advice and if he starts up a cult, I’ll be there signing up fer sure. There was something about Paul that felt familiar to me and it took the scene with the roses for me to realise what it was, he comes across as a un-obnoxious version of Ignatius J. Reilly from The Confederacy of Dunces, he has the same sort of sage advice to give and will stand up for what’s right. The rest of the characters were lovely, how they acted around Leonard and Paul was heart-warming. The story itself was well written and easy to follow, a sort of coming of age type book, throughout the whole book I had the feeling that things were gonna come undone for the duo and that Hession was gonna sucker-punch me, I guess the pandemic years have damaged me a bit for always expecting the worse.
This book is bloody fantastic, I laughed loads, I’ve learnt things, I’ve had my outlook on life altered and dammit! I also welled up a bit, the teeniest tiniest bit, was probably just raining on my face or something…anyways give this book a miss cos I’ll only get jealous!
