How to Build a Boat, Elaine Feeney
How to Build a Boat, Elaine Feeney
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How to Build a Boat

Author: Elaine Feeney

Narrator: Gary Furlong

Unabridged: 6 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 07/16/2024


Synopsis

Longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize

Shortlisted for the 2023 An Post Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year

One of the Globe and Mail's "Sixty-Two Books to Read This Fall"

One of the Globe 100's Best Books of 2023

Jamie O'Neill loves the color red. He also loves tall trees, patterns, rain that comes with wind, the curvature of certain objects, books with dust jackets, rivers, cats, and Edgar Allan Poe. At age thirteen, there are two things he wants most in life: to build a Perpetual Motion Machine, and to connect with his mother, Noelle, who died when he was born. In his mind, these things are intimately linked, and at his new school, despite the daily barrage of bullies and cathedral bells, he meets two teachers who might be able to help him, though each struggles against inertias of their own.

How to Build a Boat is the story of how one boy's irrepressible dream finds expression through a community propelled by love out of grief. Lyrical and compassionate, it's a novel about the courage of conviction and the power of the imagination to transform—and how sometimes the best way to break free of old walls is to build something beautiful within them.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Meike on August 15, 2023

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2023 Finally: Someone trying something daring and different on this longlist! Feeney tells the story of Jamie, a neurodivergent kid on the brink of puberty, who dreams of getting to know his dead mother by building an intricate machine that allows him to connect with h......more

Goodreads review by Doug on August 30, 2023

2023 Booker longlist #6 for me. This started out so promising, but then it started irritating me about halfway through and I found the final third a bit of a slog. Some of this was due to the structure - it felt like two separate strands competing for attention - one about Tess, the teacher with infe......more

Goodreads review by Aoife on May 04, 2023

It’s rare enough for a book to hit you right in the feels but this beautiful new novel from Irish author Elaine Feeney did just that to me. I was completely captivated by it. Set in the West of Ireland, the novel is an achingly beautiful and real portrayal of love, loss, grief, fitting in and the po......more

Goodreads review by Michael on February 10, 2024

Navigating to Her All Jamie O’Neill wants to do is to connect with the mother he lost when she died shortly after giving birth to him. He is 13 years old, neurodivergent, and only has an old online video of his mother swimming in her high school competition.Jaime is convinced he can bridge an attachm......more

Goodreads review by Flo on September 20, 2023

Longlisted for 2023 Booker Prize Does this book idealize what it means to be autistic? I don't know, but it felt that way. And it's not the only problem this book has. Like 'Pearl' (another one written by a poet. What makes someone a poet? Because I doubt that without prior knowledge, people reading......more