Should Have Got Off at Sydney Parade

Ross O'Carroll-Kelly #6

by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly, Paul Howard

Fiction from Ireland. No 1 Bestseller.

Genres: Irish Literature, Comedy, Fiction, Book Club

285 pages, Paperback

First published October 23, 2006

About the author

Pseudonym for journalist Paul Howard.

Reviews

[Wes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has to be my favourite book of the Ross series, the whole usual gang are here as Ross is on the countdown to the birth of Sorcha's baby, Ross suffers a phantom pregnancy, and he actually starts to grow up and accept his responsibilities , well sort off. The usual craic and laughs, highly recommended.

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was good crack, I must say. I found the use of "roysh" (which is what sometimes happens when a Dublin accent collides with the word "right") really annoying in its repetitiveness for the first 50 pages or so, but after that I just ignored it (it appears to function much as the word "like" does for American teenagers). All of Ross' various mishaps (his trip to Paris was especially priceless) are told from his morally bankrupt, egocentric, sex-crazed point of view, and yet, he loves himself so much that after a while it's hard not to pull for him even while thinking "yeah, he deserved that" when something dreadful happens. Reading this is like slapstick for the soul, some good clean dirty fun and a great bit of pretentiousness-popping for a variety of facets of Irish society. The ending is lovely, and the intervals of the narrator's mother's sexed-up first novel are riotous. It would be fun to read this out loud, but not in public spaces!

[Nešo Shonery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ovu knjigu sam našao u nekoj starinarnici. Izgleda da postoji ceo serijal (preko 20 knjiga) i da je poprilično popularan u Irskoj.

Ross je zamišljeni lik stvoren od strane novinara Pola Hauarda. Ross živi u južnom Dablinu, nekad je igrao ragbi, sklon je osvajanju žena (često uspešnom), raznim poslovnim kombinacijama, voli pivo i sport. Dešavaju mu se razne situacije, mahom duhovite. Dijalozi su napisani u južnodablinskom dijalektu (bar tako tvrdi internet, ne razlikujem varijacije irskog jezika ). Lično, nisam baš oduševljen knjigom, uprkos tome što me povremeno nasmejala. Jednostavno lik mi je bio suviše, džiber. Što se mene tiče, završio sam sa daljim izučavanjem njegovog lika i dela.

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ross begins to find his love life suffering when Sorcha gets pregnant.

Especially when her granny keeps catching him with other women.

Meanwhile, Ronan gets in a spit of bother in Paris when Father Fehilly is arrested as a Nazi war criminal and Fionn kidnaps a Northside skobie for a research project.

The strange antics of Ross O'Carroll-Kelly are well written and presented in the wonderful satirical style of Paul Howard.

[Annette Poro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is worth knowing if only for the hilarious title. For those who don’t know Dublin, there is a tram station called Sydney Parade. (I used to live beside it so the title has special resonance for me). If you forget to get off the tram at Sydney Parade you will ‘end up going the whole way into town’.

Ross’s girl gets pregnant in this book. And so he laments his failure to ‘get off at Sydney Parade’
😂😂😂

[Dennis Holevas · Rating 5 out of 5]

H have you bed and I a good time for you bed and breakfast in my car 🚗,I was in town this weekend forcibly taken care what are they saying t r adwvpbvdpwnvdapwnvcpancvapendapwbvdapwnapdwhgpadvnphdvpvdahpadvw avdwhpadwvhpgdawhgpwhdpxavwnvxaspnxvpnvxnchcvhawhvdd2hvo6vdwndvwnpavcnpavcehpafdehpgdwhvxvxwhcaehdaacvwhlacvwlnacvwkbovacwvcwjoavcojbavcwbaojvdwjaovdwojgdwwpgkpkvxakbaxvpkvdawapdwvawpdgpvdpagdpadw

[Darragh Howley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read the kindle version which seemed to have some formatting issues or typos in some places which took away from the enjoyment a little bit...

[Matthew Harwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic addition to a hilarious and entertaining series. The characters are funny and whacky but there is a nice undertone to the book making it a joy to read.

[Edmund Chattoe-Brown · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't like laying into books but this seems flat out terrible to me. Back in the bad old days of humour, all it took was some posh English guy to render an Irish accent in print to put his audience into hysterics. Lenny Henry tells excellent jokes which "whites" could not tell but the humour is observational not pejorative. It isn't clear why a book where the main character is so unpleasant and consists almost entirely of dialect "ticks" should be any funnier written by an Irish author in the present. Ross O'Carroll-Kelly, the supposed protagonist, is stupid, shallow, prejudiced, arrogant, manipulative and sexist. There are excellent books (like The Rachel Papers) where a big part of the point is the nastiness of the lead character but providing that point takes more insight than the author or characters display here. But the thing that really kills the book for me is that it is also sentimental in the sloppiest (and least plausible) way. Ross will shag anything that moves and lie shamelessly to anyone to do it but when his wife gets pregnant he realises the error of his ways and ends the book lost in adoration of his new daughter. Yes, the divorce courts show that that's how it happens all the time. Not. (And that is not all on the slop front. There is a bizarre subplot where a friend of the protagonist basically kidnaps someone who belongs to some other derided Irish subculture as part of a "social science study" and discovers - pleeeeze! - that he is a diamond geezer after all. Without meaning to, this "tolerant" outcome manages to show the Irish "tribes" as both parochial and mean spirited: It is the plot equivalent of saying "I'm not a racist but ...") If the author wasn't Irish you would have to say this book was pretty much neanderthal and only funny if your sense of humour stopped developing four decades ago.

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was totally what I needed to read at the momwnt. Something with a little sprinkling of home, but not an awful lot seeing as I've never lived in Dublin, North-side or South-side! Absolutely hilarious & my only regret is that this is the first of his books that I've read. I will be reading the rest of them.
The accent changes are hilarious & I couldn't help but read bits out loud & I did enjoy the spelling of "fill-um" & the mention of tomato ketchup as "red sauce" as I come in for much stick about that over here. The only problem with having so many in-jokes is that your target audience suddenly becomes a lot narrower, some of them I didn't get either. I will not be recommending this to any of my friends overseas! I don't even know that I'd recommend it to friends from England or Scotland either - it's that Irish!
Great read though!

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A year of Ross' life when Sorcha gets pregnant. Ross' mum writes a hilarious novel, and the guys are into the business of flavored holy water and do scientific experiments on a skobie...
Proper Irish dick-lit, with enjoyable expressions and odd humor.
This definitely needs some prior knowledge about the D4 phenomenon - A quick introduction to those who don't know O'Carroll-Kelly is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_O&#...

[Olwyn Hardy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this series. Ross is such a typical D4 it makes me laugh and cringe at the same time but always hilarious! I love how to books are written in the posh D4 accent too, I find myself talking like that for ages after Ive finished one. Just about to download 'CHAMPAGNE MOJITO' and I am sure it will be as hilarious as the others!

[Eilisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

hilarious but definatly requires cultural knowledge of the D4 phenomemon and irish culture in general. laugh out loud moments and the use of phonetics to display different accents and class of people in the books definately works for comedy effect.

[Nora Ni Dhomhnaill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious if you know of the dreaded D-4's!!

[Debra · Rating 3 out of 5]

not as funny... little old now..eh.

[Gillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hilarious! Side splittingingly funny! People think I'm simple laughing to my self on the way in to work in the mornings!

[Doctor Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious.

[Cheewai Lai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely crass but hilarious. It's the kind of antihero story that I thoroughly enjoy.

[Oleksandr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect book to read during pregnancy of your wife.
I think it is one of the best book of series, because everyone in this book is asshole(and not only Ross as usual).