The whip-smart exchanges, the bravado, the vulnerability, all are captured perfectly on the page ... Geary writes fractured outsiders not just with skill but with humility. This book does not fetishise poverty ... If the friendship between Juno and Legs is the beating heart of this novel, there is life and hope to be found in the walk-on characters, too ... Geary finds beauty in the most unlikely places, and in an often brutal story, with more than its fair share of small tragedies, he offers balm along the way ... There is always much talk in publishing of 'the difficult second novel' – the immense pressure on a writer to exceed or even just equal the achievement of a big and successful debut. Geary need have no concerns on that matter. Juno Loves Legs, in all its painful beauty, is a more than worthy successor.
For over half of the book, there is a lot of hardship and very little light ... It is not that the many instances of corporal punishment in the book feel fabricated – we know these terrible things happened with alarming regularity – rather that their representation in fiction has been done so often, and to greater effect...that there is a tired feel to the school scenes in Geary’s novel, which lends itself to misery lit ... One bad event bleeds into the next; there is something amiss with the pacing and division of the narrative. There is a lack of specificity with time and place. The first half of the book reads more like Ireland in the 1950s. Meanwhile, the presumably deliberate decision not to ground the action in a particular locale detracts from the story. Nothing happens nowhere, as Elizabeth Bowen wrote ... Misfit buddies from unkind worlds who find salvation in each other has been done before in fiction, but Geary elevates the trope with an original central duo. Juno’s pursuit of authenticity, her instinct for it, makes her a clear-eyed, oddly compassionate narrator.
...a sensitive, scarred coming-of-age story ... Juno Loves Legs is tender and heartbreaking. Young friendship takes on all the world's challenges--love, art, family, the simple and overwhelming task of survival--with tragic, poignant results. Readers will find Juno's bravado and Legs's persistent sweetness unforgettable.
Grim and affecting ... Geary’s writing is wonderfully revealing and beautiful, particularly when describing characters’ clothing, which is often used to show or hide their emotions. Altogether achingly memorable.
Twisted ... Geary uses gorgeous prose, full of Irish lilt and hard-edged slang, to describe bleak childhoods as harsh as any found in a Dickens novel ... Much of the novel is almost unbearably grim, making the occasional glimpses of real kindness Juno and Legs experience that much more poignant. An evocative, effective dive into dark if too familiar waters.
Heartbreaking ... Geary often finds poetry in Juno’s plainspoken narration, whether in lucid reflections on the brutality at the school or in Juno’s openhearted wonder at Dublin ... The blistering dialogue, too, captures the characters’ hard-won wisdom ... This is one to savor.
