I'm on the fence about this one. On the one hand, it's incredibly well written. Moehringer has a wonderful way with words and vividly evokes a sense of place and the characters in it when he discusses Publicans, the bar and its patrons he says taught him how to be a man.
But there's this undercurrent of...glossing over that reminds me, and not in a good way, of James Frey's Million Little Pieces*. This feeling comes on in two places in particular in the book; early on, when he introduces us to two fellows who run a bookstore and take him under their wing, thus almost magically ensuring his entrance into Yale and later, when he reconnects with his dad, long absent from Moehringer's life. There's a particularly uncomfortable passage where Moehringer, knowing full well his dad is a raging alcoholic, almost pours the liquor down the man's throat because they're getting along so well and he doesn't want it to end.
*Which was so obviously fake I gave it a violent throw into the 'books that are dead to me' corner, which also includes 'The English Patient' and 'The Hours'.
