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.
