4.5 Stars

I liked this!
It was a very sweet and sad and adorable and emotional coming of age YA/NA story.
We're dealing with grief and depression and everything that happens while we're trying to more or less survive that time as a somewhat still functioning teenager.
School. Friends. Social Media. Sexuality. Family. Ireland. The past. The future. Hopelessness and hope.
I really enjoyed reading this. I wouldn't have minded a few more pages - or a few hundred. I wanted more of Jamie. I also wouldn't mind seeing this on TV one day!

What a book! I was in tears form the first page …I loved every minute of it and I think it will be a beautiful book for any YA reader or frankly any age above to read. It ponders such poignant life questions and has mystery, and intrigue sprinkled throughout.

In Tom Burne Has Left the Chat, Seán Farrelly uses a modern and engaging writing style that reflects how young people communicate today. The novel incorporates elements of online conversations and digital culture, which makes the narrative feel realistic and contemporary. Farrelly’s style is clear and accessible, often mixing humor with more serious reflections on friendship, identity, and belonging. This combination creates a fast-paced and relatable reading experience, especially for readers familiar with life in online communities.

I really loved this. Jamie was a wonderful protagonist whose loneliness and struggle with his identity were wonderfully realised. Sean Farrelly has written a novel that is both timely and timeless, pulling on themes of adolescence like finding your place in the world and forming lasting relationships whilst deftly interweaving more contemporary ideas such as cyberbullying in the AI-age. This deserves to be big when it launches in September!