I recommend this to any human being, Christian or otherwise, who wants to grow in kinship with others and feel the loving embrace of the Divine. 

This was such a beautiful and moving reflection on how Fr. Gregory Boyle has encountered the true meaning of God in his life, his friends, and his work through Homeboy Industries. 

I didn't tell Captain Fearnly that I was joining the garda as part of a plot to exonerate my parents and find a four-thousand-year-old mummy -- and there is no place to enter this type of thing in the online application, so I just kept it to myself.

Last year, when Thomas Lennon was a guest on Kevin Pollak's Chat Show #371, they spent some time talking about this book. I knew I had to give it a shot almost immediately. When I got home and found it on Goodreads, I was a little disappointed to find out it was for the MG crowd -- I didn't get that impression at all from his description (I may have missed something while driving). Still, I put it on the "To Read" list and kept an eye out for its publication. It still sounded like a good time.

And boy, oh, boy it was.

Ronan Boyle is a young man who watched his parents get arrested (in the middle of a family game night) and put into prison. They're academics, and were found guilty of selling antiquities that belonged to the Irish government. As noted above, Ronan joined the Irish police as an intern, primarily as a way to . Until one night when he was recruited to help dealing with a leprechaun (he was the only one the right size to get where the leprechaun was keeping something). He did well enough with that assignment that he was immediately recruited for Garda Special Unit of Tir Na Nog -- the supernatural division.

We follow Ronan through his training -- imagine Hogwarts summarized in a hundred pages or so (although this is a shorter course of training) -- what he and his fellow cadets (including a girl who thought she was a log for most of her life, and a medium-sized bear that may or may not have been a fellow cadet) go through is unlike any training program you've seen or read about. Yet it's familiar enough that it feels comfortable. Then we see Ronan and his compatriots begin their garda careers in earnest.

Meanwhile, Ronan makes a little progress with the investigation to clear his parents. He also makes friends -- from multiple species -- and decides that he really likes berets. He's a very unlikely hero -- not terribly coordinated, skinny, as physically un-intimidating as you can possibly imagine with poor eyesight. He also has a strange obsession with Dame Judi Dench (not that Dench isn't worth obsessing over, it's just not someone many teen boys fixate on)

All in all, an entertaining story steeped in Irish lore, myth and culture -- all very well-researched and lovingly told. I'd probably recommend it just on these grounds.
But it's the way that Lennon tells this story that seals the deal. His voice is chatty, whimsical and infectious. The imagery, language, and overall feel is hilarious. Yes, I'd recommend the book just on the characters/plot. But I'd also recommend it for voice and style alone. For example:

It was a mysterious garda officer named Pat Finch, whose ghoulish face is so crisscrossed with bright red veins that it looks like a map of hell drawn by a monk in a medieval lunatic asylum. Pat Finch looks like what a heart attack would look like if it could walk around eating fish-and-chips and saying terrible things about Roscommon Football Club's starting lineup.

"There's a leprechaun navy?"

 

"Yes. Probably the least reliable fighting force in the known world," replied the captain. "The leprechaun navy is basically a heavily armed musical-theater troupe with two boats."

If you know Thomas Lennon as a performer, you'll be able to "hear" significant portions in his voice. I think I saw that he does the audiobook,which is good -- because otherwise you'd have to find someone who can do a decent impression of him to really pull of the cadence and rhythms of the text.

Oh, you must read the footnotes. All of them. They're the best use of fictional footnotes since Lutz' The Spellman Files or Bazell's Beat the Reaper -- except these are MG appropriate.

Hendrix' illustrations fit the mood perfectly. Intricate, goofy, and skillful. They're not essential, but they add a very welcome touch to the text.

This is ideal for MG readers who like early Riordan, but wouldn't mind a bit more silliness and an Irish focus. Or for those who liked Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant books. If you don't know what I'm talking about, ignore that (or go read them after you read this). It's just a fun, goofy read with a touch of adventure. Perfect for MG readers or adults who don't mind reading MG if it's well-done. This is. At the end of the day, you need to pick up a copy just so you can read the back cover blurbs by Weird Al and Patton Oswalt, really. Of course, then you'll want to read the thing based on what they say. So just save yourself the effort and get it.

The ending sets up at least one sequel and you can bet that I'll be waiting for it.

If you want to have an idea of what is going on in this, make sure you've read from #3 and on in this series, this is #6. I read #3 in 2014 and #5 in 2016 and I could barely hang in there as it was in the beginning. 

This pretty much follows the mystery set up in the books I mentioned, one of the bigger villains is pretty much already dealt with but while the other books dispatched of him, they also hinted at someone else behind the scenes, this is all about the hunt for that someone behind the scenes. 

I feel like I've been complaining about this a lot lately, just my string of luck with picking stories I guess, but our hero and heroine had a childhood friendship, we get no scenes of it. Basically, she already has found him sexy and wanted him, while he is waking up to the fact that he, too, has always wanted her. I missed watching and experiencing the development of attraction. 

Andie has always wished that her life was like a movie...but this wasn't what she had in mind. 


The summer before Andie's senior year of high school, her family moved to Punxsutawney, PA.  Andie's mother has raised her to be a movie buff, mostly by watching her favorite movies from the 1980's.  Andie naturally gravitates towards the town's movie theatre where she meets Colton. Colton seems like the perfect candidate for Andie's first kiss.  However, the evening before Andie's first day she falls asleep on the couch watching Pretty in Pink in a pink polk-a-dot dress.  After a not-so-stellar first day where Andie loses Colton's interests to classmate, Kaia, Andie wishes she could have a do-over.  Her wish might just come true.

Combining some of my favorite movies from the 80's and early 90's, Pretty in Punxsutawney is a fun and heartwarming journey.  At this point in my life I identified more better with Andie's mom, but easily found myself immersed in Andie's story.  I could feel myself cringe along with Andie as her first day of school was less than ideal, especially with Colton.  I loved when the Groundhog's Day aspect came in and Andie repeated her first day over and over with different variations while desiring to make Colton her boyfriend.  Many of the variations picked up on other movies such as Breakfast Club and Ferris Buehler's Day Off.  I especially enjoyed when Andie began to try out a different clique each first day and begins to realize what her purpose might really be. I do wish that my favorite first day with the dance party was how Andie was able to stop the cycle; however, I'm still glad that things were able to wrap up the way they did.  Overall, a very endearing and lighthearted Young Adult read with plenty of nostalgia for older readers.


This book was received for free in return for an honest review.

Four young girls, roommates at a boarding school, find an old sixpence in a mattress and decide it would be their lucky charm in finding suitable husbands when the time came...

Something New by Stephanie Sloane (❀❀❀)
Miss Anne Brabourne needs to find a husband and quickly, before she’s banished into the country. She also has a list of requirements and that list doesn’t include either love or passion thanks to the destruction, caused by heightened emotions, she’d witnessed as a child. Anne also gains a strange ally in her husband-seeking quest; Rhys Alexander Hamilton, Duke of Dorset. He’s determined to help her, but he has his own reasons.

This was a cute story. Maybe a tad too short, since both characterization and the plot itself suffered a bit—everything happened rather quickly, feeling a bit rushed. But I liked both main protagonists and especially their matchmaking aunts.


Something Borrowed by Elizabeth Boyle (❀❀❀❀)
Miss Cordelia Padley has invented a fake betrothed to curb her aunt’s enthusiasm of thrusting vicars upon her. But now she’s invited to her friend’s wedding and she’s supposed to bring her man along. The only one she could turn to is the famous Captain Kipp Talcott, her childhood friend. But as she pays him a visit, she discovers Kipp isn’t her Kipp anymore, but Winston Christopher Talcott, the Earl of Thornton. Still, she asks him to pretend to be her betrothed and he agrees, even though he was about to really get betrothed himself.

A sweet story of long-lost childhood friends finding each other again, trying to navigate between old and new dreams and real adult responsibilities, but in the end only one thing prevails—the heart.
I liked the contrast between the slightly flighty heroine and the stuffy hero, they provided a nice balance, complimenting each other rather splendidly. The story moved well, and though the love-story might appear rushed, the fact they were childhood friends compensated for the lack of space and time dedicated to the deeper development of their romance.


Something Blue by Laura Lee Guhrke (❀❀)
Lady Elinor Daventry is determined to save her father no matter the cost. Even marrying a man she doesn’t love. Anything is preferable to her father standing trial for things he didn’t commit. That’s why, six months before, she broke off her engagement to Lawrence Blackthorne, the man who believes all the nasty rumors about her father, determined to ruin him.
Ellie knows the sixpence is her ticket to marriage to the son of the duke, who might sway the peers to believe her father, but Lawrence Blackthorne has other ideas…And steals the coin.

This would’ve been a lovely second-chances story if it weren’t for the heroine and her determination to believe her father no matter what. Even when she had proof, she was still stubbornly in denial. I didn’t like how she treated the hero when he was doing his duty, the man that gave her up in order to seek justice for thousands of men.
I felt she wasn’t really worthy of everything Lawrence did to get her back, and somehow I didn’t really believe her feelings in the end, either.


...and a Sixpence in Her Shoe by Julia Quinn (❀❀❀❀)
Miss Beatrice Mary Heywood is the most pragmatic of the four friends. And the only reason she’s wearing the sixpence in her shoe is to keep her promise to her friends that she’d do so. And then she meets Lord Frederick Grey-Osbourne and all her dreams suddenly come true.

Short, but sweet.

Granted, the romance seemed a bit rushed, but we’re talking about a short story after all. I liked both protagonists, especially Bea, who looked beyond appearances and her enthusiasm was rather contagious. Frederick was a bit bland, at least compared to Bea, and I absolutely adored aunt Calpurnia in all her matchmaking glory.