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Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
Early in Skippy Dies, 14-year-old Daniel "Skippy" Juster dies in a doughnut-eating contest. The rest of the novel tells the story that leads up to that point, focusing on his friends, schoolmates, and teachers at a Catholic boarding school in Dublin. Ruprecht is Skippy's genius roommate, Mario is the perpetually horny one of the group, Lori is the object of Skippy's romantic attention, and Carl is the budding criminal who wants Lori for himself. Skippy is at the center of it all, a typical teenage boy trying to make sense of the absurd world around him. Paul Murray's novel has received a Booker nomination and positive reviews with the New York Times saying, "Six hundred sixty-one pages may seem like a lot to devote to a bunch of flatulence-obsessed kids, but that daunting length is part and parcel of the cause to which Skippy Dies, in the end, is most devoted. Teenagers, though they may not always act like it, are human beings, and their sadness and loneliness (and their triumphs, no matter how temporary) are as momentous as any adult's. And novels about them - if they're as smart and funny and touching as Skippy Dies - can be just as long as they like."
