Extraordinary — and indeed bittersweet ... There’s a lived-in circumspection to Kennedy’s work ... ennedy has earned a spot alongside contemporary Irish greats such as Eimear McBride and Sally Rooney, authors whose next project I’ll race to read, whatever they choose to write about.
Blisteringly good ... Kennedy...evokes the 1980s city with almost hallucinogenic precision, but her greater power lies in her remarkable humanity. Her characters are messy, flawed, often shatteringly self-destructive but, mapped with her fierce compassion, they march straight off the page ... A love story, a furious, tender, potty-mouthed paean to loyalty and generosity of spirit. It is also an elegy to a generation of lost Irish boys, a heartbreaking testament to the violence and fear passed down from father to son ... Kennedy’s novel is too subtle and clear-eyed to offer easy answers, but her questions will burn themselves into your heart.
Allows itself to be funny and wild ... Both the writing and the central character, Róisín, wield a playful darkness that I found deeply satisfying ... Kennedy writes excellent dialogue ... The novel’s thinnest writing is the English characters Róisín encounters in London ... Endings are tricky for realist novels with strong plots, because in real life there are few plots and far more loose ends than endings, but Kennedy finds a way to offer her readers resolution without a trace of disingenuity ... A triumph of realist fiction.
Does a good job of remembering, and recreating, the teeming emotional complexities of youth ... She is particularly good at implying the psychology of her characters — especially the parts they fail to understand themselves ... A fine writer of detail.
You are in the hands of an author who is able to move beyond her memory stores and flex her literary muscles. She extends her time frame from months to decades, creates a host of fleshed-out secondary characters.
The novel is ostensibly about surviving childhood trauma, but Kennedy’s wit and social commentary on the Irish and British relationship broaden its scope, while her complex characterizations—not only of Red and Róisín, but also Róisín’s mother, father, sister, friends, and lovers—show a humanity that defies despair. Kennedy’s heartbreaking novel is sad yet somehow hopeful and hauntingly luminous.
Nuanced ... Kennedy skillfully illustrates how her characters’ problems can be understood in part through the challenges of their time, as when Róisín’s mother announces she’s getting an annulment due to Ireland’s prohibition on divorce, which would make Róisín an illegitimate child. Once this gets its hooks in readers, it doesn’t let go.
