Heroes & Hooligans Growing Up in the City of Saints

This is a good book and quick read leaving you with wanting more. A bunch of us that also grew up in the Saints are reading this book. Although we are a few years older than when this takes place, the experiences are the same. The places are familiar to all of us and takes us back to a time of innocence. Just being a kid back then was the greatest! Reflecting on some of the things we did, and were done in the book, it’s a wonder that we are still alive or not seriously maimed. But, I believe that we just lived an adventurous life, learned, and matured and this molded us as adults. I have ordered the sequel.

Growing up in the neighborhood the story took place and attending the same grade school as many of the characters, the book took me back to my childhood. Though it is fiction, I felt like all of the short stories took place as they were both detailed and believable. While life gets fast-paced and often too serious for us in adulthood, I know I catch myself smiling about something that happened in my childhood, and Ganahl's book stirred many memories that caused me to chuckle. Loved the book as both a snapshot of suburbia decades ago and a reminder of how adventurous and creative kids can be when given a little freedom to explore.

Having grown up in the City of Saints just a few years earlier than the author I was anxious to see how much of the fabric of the city and the characters in the neighborhood I could identify with. All of them. It was a great ride down memory lane. No, you do not have to have grown up in the City of Saints to relate and enjoy, you just had to have been a kid at some time.

It was great. Hope to get his next book too

Heroes & Hooligans is a well-conceived, well-written, and entertaining book about a time and place that is magical to those who experienced it. But it’s really a story of youth nurtured by family, friends, and faith - and allowed to have the freedom to be kids, but not too much freedom. Nice book, Dennis. I got a kick out of the book cover too.