Ben Brooks (1) (1992–)

Jasper truly has a lot on his plate. His mother forces him to make schedules about everything, his therapist wants him to open up but he can't help but continue to feed her ridiculous lies and he might be about to father after making the mistake of having a one night stand. Oh, and he's definitely convinced his stepfather actually murdered his ex-wife; and is planning to murder Jasper's mum, and possibly even Jasper to make sure there are no witnesses.

He has a plan though. A plan for each of these things. More or less. The most important one may or may not include sneaking into the backyard of his stepfather's old house to see if his previous wife is buried there.

Well, I certainly had a tough time trying to decide what I thought about this book. At times, I found Jasper almost likable but then he'd have an instant turn with some opinion or action that I just can't support that made me want to groan in a very tired manner.

I wasn't sure how to place him because sometimes he seemed to sincerely care about people and worry about things like racism and homophobia; and the next, he drugs a girl to have sex with her and makes a real odd remark about gay people. I don't know. Part of Jasper seemed very raw and realistic; I could definitely relate to parts of him. But at the same time... Honestly, my biggest issue is the sex scene. He seems worried that he raped her and I feel like the whole scene is in a grey-area that I'm just, no. No thank you.

Honestly, I mostly feel confused after this book because as much as I enjoyed parts of it which were hilarious and hysterical, I disliked other parts just as much. In that way, I guess Jasper felt very much like a real human being.… (mehr)

Los protagonistas principales son Dan y Adam, dos hermanos que tras el suicidio de su hermana Ellen, asisten y participan del derrumbe absoluto de su ya de por si caótica familia. Ambos hermanos se obsesionan con averiguar por qué su hermana decidió tirarse de aquel aparcamiento, y Dan, el narrador de esta historia, nos convierte en espectadores de su realidad, muchas veces rallando el caos.
Y es que 'Hurra' es una novela que vas a devorar, pero tienes que dejarte llevar por este joven escritor. Te vas a escandalizar en más de una ocasión (ya en el funeral del principio intuirás qué te puedes encontrar...), pero también te vas a reír a carcajadas si conectas con su sentido del humor, llegarás a emocionarte y sin duda, reflexionarás con algunos pasajes. Hurra habla de la familia, del amor, de la adolescencia, de la vida y de la muerte. Ben Brooks hace gala de un sentido del humor bastante peculiar que puede no gustar a todo el mundo, pero como digo, has de leerla y dejarte llevar para aceptar que las peculiares vidas de esta familia van a regir tus pensamientos durante las casi 300 páginas de esta loca historia, que no decae en ningún momento ya que en libro pasa de todo en un movimiento constante. Consigue además llegar a un final satisfactorio, pero del que cerrarás las tapas pensando en hacerte con cualquier otro libro del autor, que es lo que me ha pasado a mí.… (mehr)