pickThis book is beautiful and heart-wrenching through its realistic depictions of normal people trying to live their ordinary lives in extremely violent times.
In 1970s' Belfast, a young Catholic school teacher falls in love with a Protestant married man and we see the tragedy of living during the Troubles unfold.
I enjoyed both this one and "Milkman".
pickI listened to this.
Northern Ireland in the 70‘s is a scary place! I was most affected by the young school children who are forced to grow up way before they should. Their childhoods stolen by the reality of life in conflict. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
pickA young woman in Belfast, teaching 7 yo‘s at a Catholic school, failing at keeping her mom sober, and helping her brother run the family bar with mostly Protestant clientele- falls for the attention of an older married man. I thought it excellent and learned a lot of Irish slang, tightly plotted, fabulous minor character studies and true sense of place, or seemed - how could I know? Five slices of pie. Read for Tournament of Favorites #ToF2024
“I‘m away.”
“Where are you for?” said Gina.
.
.
“You should be looking a fella a bit more sophisticated.”
Irish grammar!
pick⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 24-year old Cushla is a Catholic teacher who lives with her mother and works in the family pub near Belfast during the troubles. The book weaves her affair with an older, married, Protestant barrister, and also her relationships with the troubled family of a young student. The affair was really predatory, and the story took awhile to get into, but I ended up liking it. Bit of a slow burn for me. Soft pick.
bailed49%in I bail. Audio narration by Bríd Brennan is great, Kennedy an outstanding author. I find the relationship at this point not disturbing but gross. He‘s at least 26 years older, knew her father, some of the sex scenes, although not explicit, feel wrong and I‘ve noticed that in Kennedy‘s short stories as well, some of it sounds more like rape but is almost portrayed as passion? I just can‘t …
pickBeautifully written, a light touch that nonetheless brings the pain and fear of Northern Ireland at the peak of the troubles to life. Cushla is not an easy to like protagonist but her challenges, her ambiguous relationship with her religion, her deep care for her student soften off the edges of some of her poorer decisions. Would be a five star read but for the fact I was a bit icked out by the ‘great love story‘ which felt v unhealthy to me
pickCushla, a young Catholic woman, starts a relationship with an older married Protestant man during the Troubles in Ireland. Although they don‘t live in the heart of the violence, the relationship is not without danger and a series of seemingly unrelated events creates chaos. I found this a fascinating lens with which to look at how the Troubles and the prejudice affected everyone during the period, even those not in Belfast.
pickI enjoyed going back to 1970‘s Northern Ireland, a time & place I don‘t read about often. Cushla is a teacher by day and a bar maid at her family‘s pub in the evenings, living a quiet life with her alcoholic mom when she meets Michael. A secret affair begins…
