Books of the year: Novel of the year ‘Nesting’ an achingly real story for women

Critic Deirdre McArdle selects her best books of the year, featuring Irish writers, an AI office romance, and a brilliant book for children and parents alike

Roisín O’Donnell has written an absorbing, sad, and important book in ‘Nesting’ which was named Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Picture: Barry Cronin

Nesting by Roisín O’Donnell

Roisín O’Donnell’s novel was the first book I read this year and it stayed with me throughout the year. 

It offers a real and essential look at how broken the system is in Ireland, and how the odds are insurmountable for so many people.

In the opening chapter we’re plunged head first into Ciara Fay’s life, with her husband Ryan and their two young daughters. 

The tension is immediate, illustrated with a look, a comment, or a shift in mood. We get flashbacks to scenes between Ciara and Ryan. 

Gaslighting, emotional abuse, coercive control. It’s all there and the atmosphere is dense. 

I was cheering on the inside when Ciara packed the children into the car and left the house, but this is just the start of the story.

The feeling of being free is short-lived as Ciara grapples with the reality of her situation. 

She needs to find a new place to live, but she has no job, very little money, her family support network lives in the UK, and she has a husband who has no intention of letting her go. 

And so we get a look inside the world of women fleeing unsafe situations with their children, and how they cope through resilience, camaraderie, and hope.

The story is achingly real for so many women, which makes this book all the more important, and incredibly sad. 

With its extraordinary writing, and ability to create tension, fear, and claustrophobia, it’s hard to believe this is O’Donnell’s debut novel. 

It’s no surprise Nesting was named Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards.

Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way by Elaine Feeney

The title of this appealed to me straight off the bat. The situations and heaviness we all face in our lives are eminently normal — breakups, grief, caring for ageing parents, childhood trauma — but they take their toll, and how we deal with them is where this story lies.

Claire O’Connor’s mother has died, and she makes the trip home from London where she lives with her boyfriend Tom, to the West of Ireland, just outside Athenry for the funeral. 

Feeney’s descriptive prose adeptly captures Claire and her brothers’ grief. Her father is a looming presence. 

Back in London after the funeral, Claire unravels, and the breakup with Tom seems inevitable. 

With little to keep her in London, and the guilt of not being there for her mother consuming her, Claire moves home to care for her dying father.

Following her father’s death, Claire stays in the family home, and through flashbacks we’re transported back to her childhood, and further back in time to her great-grandmother’s life in the same house. 

It’s a heady mix of present life and history. I love the switching of narratives, moving from the first person for Claire’s present and third person for her past. 

This clever device brings us into Claire’s head, and honestly, at times I felt like I was Claire, with some of her reactions to people and situations making me laugh out loud.

Everything turns upside when Claire discovers that her ex Tom has moved close to her family home, ostensibly to work on his book. 

As they reconnect, we see a new version of Claire, albeit with some of the same doubts about Tom and their relationship circling. 

Her two worlds have collided and we’re invested in how Claire will cope with this development.

This is all set against the backdrop of the O’Connor family going back a couple of generations, and Feeney’s attention to detail with the historical setup is wonderful and devastating.

This book sucked me in completely. The character of Claire is incredibly relatable — from her interactions with her poetry students to becoming absorbed in the online life of an American “trad wife”. 

Feeney’s writing is lyrical, real, and powerful; some passages took my breath away. I will be dipping into this book again and again.

Chaos Theory by Sylvia Leatham

In a previous life I was a technology journalist. I’m also a huge fan of workplace comedies like The US Office, The Paper, and Fisk. 

So Chaos Theory, which is pitched as a workplace comedy, with a robot and a little bit of romance, ticked a lot of boxes for me.

The workplace is Go Ireland, a tourism website based in Dublin. 

The cast of characters is straight out of the workplace comedy playbook including a hapless boss, who doesn’t realise everyone is laughing at him; the boss’ wife, who works in the gift shop and considers herself an artist. 

And of course, a will they, won’t they couple — Maeve and Shane.

The action centres around Maeve, who works in marketing. 

Maeve has had “seven jobs in seven years” and doesn’t tend to stick around in any one place for very long. 

She also tends to keep people at bay. But then Maeve is charged with babysitting Go Ireland’s newest employee, a robot assistant named Kobi.

Cue ridiculous misadventures and misunderstandings as Maeve tries to “train” Kobi to be more human. 

Some of the scenes, and the characters, will be familiar to anyone who has worked in an office job (we all have those stories). 

While the book is pitched as a romance — Maeve is torn between Shane and Kobi’s handler Josh — the most interesting relationship for me is between Maeve and Kobi.

As AI infiltrates our lives in myriad different ways, this book is a light and accessible look at the shortcomings of robots and AI, but also, the relationships that can be forged, particularly as we train the robots to be more like us.

Chaos Theory is a feelgood book with plenty of laughs, with likeable characters and real connections — between humans and robots.

Ellora McGee Trainee Banshee: The New School by Sineád O’Hart

As the mum of a seven-year-old, I’ve lost track of the amount of children’s books I’ve read this year. 

But Sineád O’Hart’s book stood out in the pile (it even inspired a last-minute banshee hair addition to my daughter’s Halloween costume).

The New School is the first book in the Ellora McGee series. Here we meet Ellora, the cutest banshee you’ve ever seen; her mom, a flower fairy; her dad, a pooka; and her two younger siblings. 

They’ve just moved to Ballyshee and Ellora is attending a new school called Shee Le Cheile National School.

This delightful book is about making new friends and feeling different. 

Ellora is afraid once the other pupils at her school find out she’s a banshee they’ll be afraid of her, but her Wail is bubbling up and it’s getting more and more difficult for Ellora to keep it at bay, especially when there’s something funny going on in her new school.

The storytelling is wonderful, with a lovely Irish feel and the odd cúpla focail Gaeilge. 

Ellora’s reaction to her Wail is so relatable to a young girl, and her banshee hair is fabulous as a completely separate character. 

The illustrations by Úna Woods are beautiful and bring O’Hart’s story to life.

We can’t wait for further Ellora McGee Trainee Banshee books in our house.

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