Joseph Birchall

62 of 75 for 2015. As the cover states, "Five boys begin a game of dares. Only four will survive." Put yourself in the place of those four survivors. What if one of your childhood friends died doing something you dared him to do? What if you are the one who pushed him into the situation that robbed him of life? How would you survive the guilt? Most of Birchall's novel takes place fifteen years after Michael was pushed off the pier into the icy cold water that claimed his life. Fifteen years later, the four "survivors" are still friends, still get together on a regular basis, especially on each anniversary of Michael's death, but all are trapped in a kind of stasis of their own, none of them truly achieving any kind of successful adulthood. What if, Nick wonders, they were to continue the dare game that started and ended with Michael's death? Would that break them out of their individual impasses? As I read Birchall's story set in Dublin, I became more and more involved in the lives of these four men, moving from indifference to full engagement as their situations became ever more dire. If I found the beginning a bit slow, by the end I was deeply drawn to see how Nick, Charlie, Danny and Liam would handle themselves. Highly recommended.… (mehr)