I loved everything about this one. Had a real Gaiman-esque feel to it. Samuel and his dog Boswell, Nurd, the Scourge of Five Dieties, Shan and Gath the warthog demons getting hammered on Spiggit’s Old Peculiar beer and the very gates of hell opening in the quaint little town of Biddlecombe. 5 Stars and Highly Recommended.

When I first started reading this all I could think of was the Tom Hanks movie The Burbs! This book was fun and I am looking forward to reading the next 2 in the trilogy. Sam and his dog, Boswell were great characters that made this book. Excellent story!!

DNF at 80%This is cute and fun, but it was starting to feel like a chore towards the end there... Made the choice to forcing things and just put it down.

The Gates is a hell of a funny book, yes laugh out loud funny.A foursome of dark dabblers attempt a summoning. Somewhere near Geneva, the Large Hadron Collider is whirring about attempting to divine the “god particle.” What could possibly go wrong? Before you can say “oopsy” a small portal to you-know-where has been opened, and nasty slithery sorts begin arriving, like unwanted relations, for an extended stay. John Connolly - image from his siteSamuel Johnson, this one sans Tourette and any in...

Zany and hilarious and probably one of the best Halloween stories I've read. The narration and footnotes had me laughing out loud every time I picked up the book. As soon as my copy arrives in the mail, I'm gonna post all the quotes that cracked me up. There isn't much of a plot here though--amateurish Satanists accidentally open a portal to hell with unintentional help from the large collider at CERN, which was in the middle of some Higgs-boson-related work. Then subtle chaos ensues when some o...

This is a good book...of course the fact that I gave it 5 stars probably gave away my feelings on that score.....I have only read one other book by Connolly, "The Book of Lost Things", which I also liked greatly, but I really think that this one could be rated, "more enjoyable" at least in some ways. It's not so "deep" as the aforementioned "other novel" but neither is it quite so "down". And this might be considered odd for a book about the gates of Hell opening into a small English town foresh...

ICK!! BAH!! Me no like this book! Terrible!What a bummer. I so enjoyed The Book of Lost Things and hoped this would be another fun romp. Not to be. This one is just stupid. Connolly tried way too hard to be clever and failed miserably. I gave the book 80 pages before giving up, which is pretty generous for a book I'm not liking at all. So I don't think I was hasty in my judgment. I really wanted to give it a chance to get better. It doesn't.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I hate my neighbors. Yeah, I know I'm supposed to love them, but it would be easier if they were just a little more lovable and not so loathable. Between the late night beerfests, the trucks without mufflers, the pit bulls tied to trees, and the Jerry Springer style public arguments (not to mention just a general lack of hygiene), there's not a lot I can be thankful for. Until The Gates. Now I can at least say, "Well, they haven't accidentally opened a gate...

After reading The Book of Lost Things and feeling a bit let down, I wasn't really in all that much of a hurry to read The Gates, fearing to be let down again. But, while I did have some issues with The Gates, overall I really enjoyed it. If this book was a person, it would have been conceived and raised thus: Conception (biological parentage) - Christopher Moore & JK RowlingRaised by (adoptive parentage) - Douglas Adams's spirit Biology: Christopher Moore's swimmers supplied the most dominant ch...

Rating: 3.25* of fiveThe Book Report: Young Samuel Johnson and his dachshund, Boswell, are trying to show initiative by trick-or-treating a full three days before Halloween which is how they come to witness strange goings-on at 666 Crowley Road. The Abernathys don't mean any harm by their flirtation with the underworld, but when they unknowingly call forth Satan himself, they create a gap in the universe. A gap in which a pair of enormous gates is visible. The gates to Hell. And there are some p...

This is a hilarious laugh out read while being creepy, thoughtful and spine-tingling all at once. The style of writing is similar to Terry Pratchett’s, including the use of foot notes, that makes the story even more of a joy to read. The Gates is about a young, clever boy called Samuel Johnson who happens to stumble upon four demons who want to open the gates of Hell and cause the apocalypse. Samuel is a fantastic character, often in novels I find the main characters to be very plain in attempt

I read this with my eleven year old daughter. We both had a devilishly fun time with it, and we are looking forward to the next book in the series. Connolly proves he can write for anyone with this book.

I probably should not describe a book about the gates of Hell opening as ‘cute,’ but here we are:It was cute.I haven’t read any Connolly before, not even the famous The Book of Lost Things, so I didn’t know what to expect–besides the fact that friend Mimi liked it. Turns out it was a quick little read that was clever and entertaining.Samuel Johnson is avoiding Stephanie the Babysitter and her bossy tendencies when he and his faithful dog, Boswell (the constant companion), witnesses the new neigh...

In Which We Learn about “The Gates” and the Subjective Nature of Humor, None of Which Is Entirely HelpfulWith such a massive stack of horror books to work my way through this year, I wanted to get a jump on the seasonal festivities. And, thanks to Carol’s sage advice, this book made for a terrific jumping-off point. So much so, that I’ve already purchased a copy of my own to lend to my fifteen-year-old nephew. Here’s hoping he has as much fun with it as I did 🤞 . . .The Gates opens with Samuel J...

This book had me laughing out loud every several pages, it's a keeper! John Connolly just earned himself a fan.In "The Gates", Samuel Johnson and his dog, Boswell, have stumbled upon a portal to hell when his neighbors unleashed demonic forces during a ritual gone wrong. With the help of his friends, a pair of misfit scientists and a demon, Nurd, Samuel must repair the rift between earth and hell to keep the Great Malevolence from taking over the world and destroying humanity.The book is punctua...

I enjoyed this very much but let me say straight away it is nothing like any of his other books. Not the ones I have read anyway and that is nearly all of them:) This is really a series for older children and it is written in that light, entertaining way where, even when the world is filling up with beings from Hell, you just know nothing bad is really going to happen. Samuel, who is about eleven years old and definitely idiosyncratic, manages to repeatedly escape death by demon by luck not judg...

A high three: enjoyable but it didn't blow me away. Definitely reminded me of Douglas Adams books and Simon Pegg movies, and if you like that type of British-style humor then you'll probably find this funny and worth the read. I never thought I'd see the Large Hardron Collider featured in a book about demons, but it plays a very prominent role, as does quantum physics, which was totally not what I was expecting.Two things to note; first, this is an adult book and not YA, and many people have it

Posted at at Shelf Inflicted I read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy nearly 30 years ago and don’t remember finding it all that funny. I also never cared for Monty Python. Maybe it’s the British humor I don’t get, but Fawlty Towers cracks me up, no matter how many times I see each episode. Humor is such a personal thing, and sometimes I just don’t see humor in things others find funny. And other times I laugh hysterically at things people don’t understand. So I’m cautious about the humorous

“I'm a ghost," Said the small figure, then added, a little uncertainly, "Boo?” I laughed a lot with this book. Dialog and footnotes are both so funny sometimes I ended up having tears in my eyes.Samuel Johnson lives with his dog Boswell and his mother in a village. He starts Halloween earlier and when he stops at his neighbor house, the Abernathys, something terrible and horrifying happens. In their basement there is an explosion and after that some strange creatures emerges from a blue fire…...

Do you like Douglas Adams? Robert Rankin? Do you crack up at Shaun of the Dead or Monty Python?Are you drawn to droll Irish (or even British) humor and wonderfully inane commentary? Well, here you are then. The Gates is just the book for you!Connolly's urban fantasy about a precocious boy, his protective dachshund, and an imminent apocalypse is delightfully amusing. It's a fascinating mix of demonic entities and mishaps of physics, playing on the idea that although scientists may seek the truth