Big Girl, Small Town by Michelle Gallen

Majella O'Brien lives with the shadow of "The Troubles" on a daily basis.  Living in a border town means that even after the Good Friday Agreement there is still a simmering undercurrent of tension between the Loyalists and the Unionists in Northern Ireland and from what little we glean of Majella's earlier life it seems her father and his family and wider range of acquaintances were intimately involved in the Unionist cause.  Throw in the fact that Aghybogey still has clear separation between faiths, so much so they live on opposite sides of the bridge, and this novel feels set in a Northern Ireland more akin to the 1970s than the 2010s.

Entirely narrated by Majella, this is her story of life in a small town where family are disappointments and the options for a slightly peculiar female are very limited.  As described by the jacket blurb the main thing Majella doesn't know is that she is Autistic.  However, this reader isn't sure that she really is, or, if so she is only mildly on the Spectrum.  Majella is naive but this can easily be put down to her cloistered upbringing.  She is emotionally stunted, but so are a lot of people.  She has tics and self-soothing actions that seem out of place.  When you stop to think about her upbringing it seems that the self-soothing is the only comfort she got as her parents seem to have been too wrapped up in their own lives to provide a child with much in the way of comfort.  I think it just annoyed me that the Autistic label was bandied so freely by the publishers when it seems that all Majella's "problems" are merely coping mechanisms and products of her cold upbringing.  Okay, I'll tuck my soapbox away now.

I sort of enjoyed this book but I also found myself reading it in fits and starts as I found myself becoming bored with the story.  Majella's voice just didn't hold my attention for prolonged periods.  It also doesn't help that it starts and finishes with no real "point", just a snapshot from a damaged life that has a glimpse of a brighter future.  A brighter future that came at a terrible cost to her paternal Grandmother.

The writing is strong and the author has developed a clear voice for Majella, an astonishingly honest voice at that.  Unfortunately, it just didn't engross me in the tale and I was constantly being reminded that I was reading rather than being there - admittedly, parts are so well executed you feel like you are reading someone's diary but then it loses it's grip and you are back to feeling "oh, yeah it's this quirky book".

There is humour in the book but this can tend to the coarse side - no real surprise when you consider Majella works in the local Chippery and deals with the inebriated on a nightly basis.  It also illuminates the routines we all fall into - ordering the same takeout meal, having the same banter, doing the same things every day in an almost ritualistic way.

I can see that some people will absolutely rave about this book and I can understand why they would.  It just wasn't my cup of Spar Value Coffee.

THANK YOU TO THE PUBLISHERS FOR AN ARC OF THIS NOVEL IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.