If you loved Shuggie Bain or Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart, then you’ll very much love this. My review: I would describe this as ‘if Shuggie Bain was set in Ireland’. But Dublin is a long, wet and hungry way from West Cork in the mid-70s, especially when they have no money – just the clothes they stand up in and an old, battered suitcase. When a letter arrives with a summons to Dublin and the promise of publication, it offers a chink of light – the hope of rescue.

Two Kids, Joseph and Paul, and their struggling, poet father, Fraser, are battling grief and poverty. It’s one that makes you think and definitely not one to skim over as it grips you right from the beginning.ĥ. It’s an incredible story of family, grief and boundaries. We have to interpret the text throughout the beginning as it’s written as if from the point of view of a toddler, and then doesn’t get much better by the time the main character is a teenager. This story is told over a girl’s young life from very young until a late teenager – and the writing reflects this. My review: Sally Rooney writes without any quotation marks, but Eimear McBride takes this to the next level with no quotation marks and many broken sentences.

This isn’t always comfortable – but it is always a revelation. To read A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is to plunge inside its narrator’s head, experiencing her world at first hand. It is a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and chaotic sexuality of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist. A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBrideĮimear McBride’s award-winning debut novel tells the story of a young woman’s relationship with her brother, and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumour. I think we all know an Aisling in our own towns or even friend groups so the book was highly relatable and funny, and made for some lovely light reading.Ĥ. My review: A funny, witty, Irish version of Bridget Jones. Newly single and relocated to the big city, life is about to change utterly for this wonderful, strong, surprising and funny girl, who just happens to be a complete Aisling. When a week in Tenerife with John doesn’t end with the expected engagement, Aisling calls a halt to things and soon she has surprised herself and everyone else by agreeing to move into a three-bed in Portobello. Aisling goes out every Saturday night with her best friend Majella, and spends two nights a week at her boyfriend John’s. She lives at home in Ballygobbard with her parents and commutes to her good job at PensionsPlus in Dublin. Oh My God, What A Complete Aisling by Emer McLysaght & Sarah BreenĪisling is twenty-eight and she’s a complete… Aisling.

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