A review by bigtomlaff
The Wild Irish Girl: A National Tale by Sydney Owenson Morgan

informative medium-paced

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

3.5

Not really one to read for a gripping story, the plot is a very simple romance one between unlikely lovers who slowly come together and end up married, with a decent red herring near the end. However, I must praise this book for it being so informative about Irish literary and historical culture, so informative at times it becomes more of an essay than a fiction. Now, the author does have a somewhat bias towards the Irish, but when this was written there was a lot of discrimination against Irish in England, and Ireland was England's colonial farmland, so it is honourable that Owenson chose to write this defence of Ireland, and provides the other side of the argument in the Anglo-Irish relationship of the time. Despite the bias, the book is covered in footnotes, some referenced, by the author, so the text does work as an informative one, and is worth reading for this alone.