Reviews with content warning for War - Trespasses

This was one of those lovely surprises I put on hold 6 months ago & don't remember why, but I'm glad. It's a perfect slice in time (Ireland in the '70s), incredibly sexy and coming of age until it hits you that coming of age during The Troubles meant all that normal teenage fucking around had bigger implications. I got to one part towards the end and burst into tears because I should have seen it coming, the book warned me in a thousand ways, but the author's writing was so lush and cozy and subtle that I got complacent. Really beautiful.

Content Warnings

jacs63's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Can't recommend this book enough.
Best read of the year for me, so far.
Totally deserves all the nominations and rewards.
The writing is exquisite.
A tragic and heartbreaking, historical love story, on so many different levels of love.
The characters are flawed but loveable. The story is so....real.
As Cushla says at one point...'This is going to end badly...' and you know it will.
It's doomed from the start. The age gap, the different religions, the troubles in Ireland, he's married with a child....and a serial adulterer. The decisions you make. The coincidences. The lies and deceit.

It made me feel guilty that, as someone of recent Irish descent- 3 generations back-I haven't tried to read more about the 'Trouble in Ireland'. I am out to find some good books to read now. I lived in the UK till 1974 so I remember a fair bit.

Couldn't put it down once I started it.
I hope Louise Kennedy writes more books soon.

Content Warnings

juliep810's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

mraddd's review against another edition

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dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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alisonannk's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Content Warnings

deedireads's review against another edition

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challenging emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

TL;DR REVIEW

Trespasses is a well-written, intentionally tense novel about choice, conflict, and community. I wasn’t quite in the right headspace for it, but there’s no denying its merits.

For you if: You are interested in novels set during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

FULL REVIEW

Shortlisted for the 2023 Women’s Prize, Trespasses is a well-written, character-driven novel about the ripple effect of personal choices on a tight-knit community, especially during times of political unrest (in this case, the Troubles in Northern Ireland). I think that I was perhaps not quite in the right mindset for this one, so it didn’t blow me away, but I certainly enjoyed it and have a lot of respect for what it pulls off.

The novel takes place in a small town outside Belfast around 1975. The main character is a young Catholic schoolteacher named Cushla who begins an affair with an older, married, Protestant barrister (lawyer) named Michael. She also finds herself a bit too involved in the home life of one of her less fortunate students, Davy. Of course, all that hardly lends itself to stasis even without the Troubles; eventually, the precariousness of the situation implodes.

This kind of felt like Milkman meets Shuggie Bain. That explains why critics loved it and I only liked it (I was lukewarm on Milkman but loved Shuggie). I feel like I’ve read a lot of novels lately about young women making morally gray choices, and a lot about the Troubles, so maybe that’s why it didn’t stand out as much in my mind. I also thought I was picking up on a couple of hints at the end that ended up being red herrings or just wrong assumptions about where the story was going; the actual execution made less sense to me, plot-wise, than what I’d assumed, which left me a little unsatisfied.

Lest you think I disliked this book, I will say that I very much appreciated how Kennedy managed to show both sides of the conflict with nuance, more like what I imagine it would have been to live in a mixed community than history or the press can convey. I also appreciated the way she brought the question of class into the mix of themes — this was very well done. Finally, I gotta hand it to the narrator of the audiobook, who read the story beautifully and authentically.

If you like Irish literature, especially about the Troubles, this one might be for you.

Content Warnings

jenk2020's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

C - 8 A - 9 W - 8 P - 7 I - 7 L - 7 E - 7

Content Warnings

barbarella85's review against another edition

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challenging medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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