This Might Hurt a Bit

This wonderfully touching story paints an honest portrait of what grief is really like… loud, chaotic, overwhelming, confusing. Absolutely loved it. Cried some and laughed a lot. It is a wild ride of a story, yippee ki yay!

LOVED this book. Sad, funny, heartfelt, heartbreaking and ultimately redemptive. Couldn’t put it down.

I hate reading and I enjoyed it!

I’ve never related more to a book about grief. Watching this young man deal with the mayhem of a single day, while also reminiscing on times with his sister, was an amazing and emotional experience. Brilliantly written and beautifully constructed, Doogie Horner has won my heart.My one and only critique: I wish we saw more of his parents throughout the book. All of the characters were well developed accept for them.I look forward to picking up more Horner in the future.

I don't typically read much in the YA genre, but I actually enjoyed this book quite a lot. The protagonist is obviously in a lot of pain due to losing his sister a year prior to the novel's events. However, as teenagers often do, he refuses to share these feelings with anyone, even the reader to a certain extent. This leads to a series of increasingly ridiculous and hilarious scenarios over the course of, I think it's safe to say, the worst day of school ever.It's a slow build, but over the course of the book I came to really enjoy each of the characters, even the bullies are painted in such a way that you don't *totally* hate them, and can kind of understand why they want to beat the crap out of Kirby.The author's voice is unique and funny, he's also a stand up comedian so you can see where a lot of the funnier lines and thoughts are coming from. All in all, a funny, enjoyable book.

I really loved this book. I know it's cliche to say it made me laugh and made me cry, but it honestly did. It really captured what it is like dealing with grief on top of all the day-to-day struggles of being a teenager. Definitely great for teens or adults.

Kirby lost his sister a year ago to cancer, and he still hasn't allowed himself to grieve. He has pulled away from his parents and life in general, writing in his journal every night as he falls asleep watching Die Hard. One night, Kirby and his friends P.J. and Jake decide to go to a random farm and paint the cows. Unbeknownst to them, they end up painting the cows belonging to the school "bad boy's" father, which sets off a crazy chain of events that will expose some secrets and emotions that have been hiding for some time. The boys find themselves in quite a bit of trouble and have to think quickly to get themselves out of it. Through the fighting, trouble, and humiliation, Kirby will have to come to grips with his sister's death, learn how to grieve, and continue to live his life to the fullest.I thought this was a good picture of how some people grieve, and there were definitely some crazy and funny moments. I didn't care for the profanity, and the way substance abuse was dealt with was not acceptable. The fact that a school authority figure would get away with smoking pot on campus is awful, and Jake's opioid addiction was not dealt with properly, in my opinion. He was allowed to get away with it, which also enabled him to continue abusing the substance and himself. Though the ending was okay for Kirby and his grief, I feel like Jake and a couple other characters got the short end of the stick, and there were quite a few ends left untied. I say this knowing that my opinions are probably in the minority, but I would have a hard time recommending this book because of these issues, which is a shame because there needs to be more boys' young adult fiction.I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. A positive review was not required, and all opinions expressed are entirely my own.

I'll admit, I the book description intrigued me. However, the actual book happened to be wildly different from my expectations. Overall, I thought the book was going to be more focused on the way that Kirby struggles with his sister's death. However, it just focused on Kirby trying to get away from bullies at school, with some flashbacks thrown in.I'll start with the good: there are a lot of funny lines in this book. Kirby's voice is unique; while it's difficult to follow his train of thought at times, he's overall a funny guy. He tries to make light of what's happening to him, despite the fact that he's struggling more with his sister's death than he's letting on. It's this suppression of emotion that felt the most real to me throughout the book. Kirby doesn't want to talk about it, with anyone.For me, the timeline of the book wasn't quite believable. Everything here happens within a day. But it feels like Kirby's in school a lot longer than he should be. There's all this time between classes where bullying happens. Overall, the events don't seem like they add up to a single day. The events would have made more sense if they spread out over a series of days, instead.The other thing that bothered me was the little time that was spent on Kirby dealing with his sister's death. This book is being promoted as a book that deals with grief. But, we don't get much of that actually within the text. Just small scenes here and there. I would have liked seeing this theme explored more through Kirby's eyes.Overall, despite the funny moments in the book, This Might Hurt a Bit left me feeling a bit lukewarm about the story.