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marialangworthy's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Death, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, and Death of parent
jess_segraves's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Eating disorder, and Death of parent
Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide attempt
becca_thegrimreader's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
2.25
This book revolves around the Gleeson family told from different points of time from the 1990s all the way through to the present day. Kate, our narrator, hosts a dinner party on Halloween 2018 to mark the anniversary of her twin sister’s passing. At the end of the night, tensions have flared and we see that not all is right with our characters.
Gilmartin examines an Irish family dealing with the traumas they have gone through. The matriarch of the Gleeson family, Bernadette, is difficult and demanding. We watch as the rest of the family must bend to her will and appease her differing moods. Her ambitious aims for her children jar with what they really want, and through the course of the book, we see how this impacts them negatively. On the whole, I found Bernadette to be the most memorable character, in comparison, the rest of the family were lackluster at times and forgettable.
Grief comes to the forefront in this novel. Kate’s father dies in a car accident, and within a few years, Kate’s twin sister Elaine dies in an accident. The family dynamic crumbles with their mother becoming a shadow of her former self. Kate’s grief is something that weighs on her heavily. She is haunted by the memories of her sister who she views as the better twin and even comments that she should have been the one to die. She begins to self-destruct and suffers from an eating disorder. The writing during these parts is incredibly raw and moving.
What lets this book down is the pacing, it is painfully slow. There are many interesting parts in the book, but they are very spaced out. I found some sections hard to get through and fought the urge to give up many times.
Gilmartin examines an Irish family dealing with the traumas they have gone through. The matriarch of the Gleeson family, Bernadette, is difficult and demanding. We watch as the rest of the family must bend to her will and appease her differing moods. Her ambitious aims for her children jar with what they really want, and through the course of the book, we see how this impacts them negatively. On the whole, I found Bernadette to be the most memorable character, in comparison, the rest of the family were lackluster at times and forgettable.
Grief comes to the forefront in this novel. Kate’s father dies in a car accident, and within a few years, Kate’s twin sister Elaine dies in an accident. The family dynamic crumbles with their mother becoming a shadow of her former self. Kate’s grief is something that weighs on her heavily. She is haunted by the memories of her sister who she views as the better twin and even comments that she should have been the one to die. She begins to self-destruct and suffers from an eating disorder. The writing during these parts is incredibly raw and moving.
What lets this book down is the pacing, it is painfully slow. There are many interesting parts in the book, but they are very spaced out. I found some sections hard to get through and fought the urge to give up many times.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Eating disorder
Moderate: Toxic relationship
britgirlreading's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Eating disorder, and Death of parent
kayliecelery's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
4.0
TW: Eating disorder, Death
It is Halloween 2018 and Kate is hosting a dinner for her brothers and her sister in law for the anniversary of her twins death. We get a glimpse of how the death of her sister Elaine has affected the family in very different ways. By the end of the dinner there is no dessert as it is thrown in the bin and Kate's brother Ray has given her a laced brownie. It is at this point we delve into their childhood and Kate's memories of that time.
I actually really enjoyed reading about this dysfunctional family and how they had all been changed/manipulated by their mother and the circumstances of her actions.
Reading about Kate and her eating disorder was soul destroying in such a respectful and heartfelt way as you follow her through the starting days of it to the present time.
This is definitely a slow burner, but so worth the read.
Thanks to Netgalley for the free copy in return for an honest review.
It is Halloween 2018 and Kate is hosting a dinner for her brothers and her sister in law for the anniversary of her twins death. We get a glimpse of how the death of her sister Elaine has affected the family in very different ways. By the end of the dinner there is no dessert as it is thrown in the bin and Kate's brother Ray has given her a laced brownie. It is at this point we delve into their childhood and Kate's memories of that time.
I actually really enjoyed reading about this dysfunctional family and how they had all been changed/manipulated by their mother and the circumstances of her actions.
Reading about Kate and her eating disorder was soul destroying in such a respectful and heartfelt way as you follow her through the starting days of it to the present time.
This is definitely a slow burner, but so worth the read.
Thanks to Netgalley for the free copy in return for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Eating disorder, and Death of parent
booklane's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.5
This acutely observed novel opens with Kate throwing the titular dinner party, which, far from being a celebration, brings together the family on the 16th anniversary of Kate’s twin sister’s death. Quietly, without apparent drama, tensions emerge and shortly the Baked Alaska ends up in the bin.
The novel goes back in time, home in rural Ireland and to Kate’s first years as Trinity student, examining Kate’s dysfunctional family, including her manipulative, half-crazed, abusive, embarrassing mother, and her twin sister, her mother’s favourite, who was so much extrovert than her. Exploring guilt, family relationships, feelings of inadequacy, loss, surviving and eating disorders.
Gilmartin painstakingly lingers on details recreating mood and atmospheres. She brings out the undercurrents of tension in daily life under an appearance of complete normality that is similar to what we find in Ann Enright, who aptly is the author of the praise on the book cover. This novel enters in full rights the canon of novels centering on life in rural Ireland, caught in the Nineties at a time of change in values, which emerges through the young siblings’ experiences and their mother’s hysterical reactions. In this slow burner, the depiction of how thwarted and damaging family relations can be and the portrait of Kate’s struggle to cope and what she does to her body are shocking.
A good debut. 3.5
My thanks to Pushkin Press for an ARC via NetGalley
The novel goes back in time, home in rural Ireland and to Kate’s first years as Trinity student, examining Kate’s dysfunctional family, including her manipulative, half-crazed, abusive, embarrassing mother, and her twin sister, her mother’s favourite, who was so much extrovert than her. Exploring guilt, family relationships, feelings of inadequacy, loss, surviving and eating disorders.
Gilmartin painstakingly lingers on details recreating mood and atmospheres. She brings out the undercurrents of tension in daily life under an appearance of complete normality that is similar to what we find in Ann Enright, who aptly is the author of the praise on the book cover. This novel enters in full rights the canon of novels centering on life in rural Ireland, caught in the Nineties at a time of change in values, which emerges through the young siblings’ experiences and their mother’s hysterical reactions. In this slow burner, the depiction of how thwarted and damaging family relations can be and the portrait of Kate’s struggle to cope and what she does to her body are shocking.
A good debut. 3.5
My thanks to Pushkin Press for an ARC via NetGalley
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Eating disorder
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