Published By: Doubleday
Pages: 224
Released On: 13/08/2026
Something terrible has happened to Jack but no one seems to want to talk about it.
His uncles can tell him about everything from quantum physics to how to hunt for deer, but they can’t seem to tell him anything about their own sister or why Jack doesn’t feel sad for her in the way he should, or why Grandad tries to shoot Jack’s dad when he gets out of the hospital.
Still, there’s work to be done in the oily wonderland of his uncles’ garage; there’s his beautiful aunt Rose to hypnotise him and his loving grandparents to console him; then there’s JJ, who wants to fight him one day and save him the next.
But with so many questions, in a family with so many secrets, it is difficult for Jack to understand the person he is becoming. How can a simple boy learn to become a king?
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I’ve only read one Donal Ryan book – The Spinning Heart – but I do own two others – Heart Be At Peace and Strange Flowers. I wasn’t sure how I felt about The Spinning Heart but I could appreciate his storytelling ability and this one sounded interesting.
I’m not sure about this one either. Maybe it’s his writing style as his previous book was similar, and I struggled to get a grasp on it. Reading other reviews, I can understand how full of heart and soul his writing is, but I struggle to find the story beneath the writing.
The characters are also really hard to find underneath the writing, and the speech is worked into the paragraph so it’s not always clear that someone’s talking, and I have a personal issue with books that don’t clearly show dialogue.
To be honest, I didn’t really know what was going on, other than a family going through a bereavement. But it seemed to focus on ensuring it is beautifully written – and I can’t deny it is very lovely to read the actual words – and forgot that the reader wants a story to invest in.
It is an interesting look at a child’s grief. I read a lot of books about grief and death, but very few give you a child’s perspective, and they should because it’s obviously very different to an adult’s. So that side of it I found interesting, I just wish it was a bit clearer to read.
I can see a flood of 4 and 5 star reviews and only a handful of 3 star or below and so I know I’m in the minority here. I didn’t find anything specifically wrong with it, but it didn’t wow me. I can appreciate his storytelling talent and the emotion he’s managed to find, but I felt it was too hard work to actually get anything of substance from it. Perhaps his writing style just isn’t for me.
If you’ve read his work before and you enjoy it, then you’ll enjoy this. I think you definitely need to understand his style to get something out of it and I just don’t know if that’s me. Like I say, I have got two of his other books so I will give them a go but I may have to hold my hand up and say he’s not a writer for me. Which is a shame but I suppose we can’t all like every book.
Books By Your Bedside 