Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling by Emer McLysaght & Sarah Breen

Aisling #1

293 pages

Book Club Selection

Irish

Just a small-town girl living in a notions world

Blurb (from GoodReads)

Everyone knows an Aisling:

Loves going Out Out, but secretly scared of liquid eyeliner.
Happy to drink the bar dry, but will bring her own coaster if necessary.
Would rather die than miss a cooked hotel breakfast, but can calculate the Points in a Snickers at fifty paces.

Aisling's the girl with a heart of gold, but a boyfriend who still hasn't made a peep about their Big Day even after seven years.

But then a disastrous romantic getaway shows Aisling that it's time to stop waiting around and leave John behind for the bright lights of Dublin. After she's wailed her way through Adele's Greatest Hits, that is.

Between glamorous new flatmates, a scandal at work and finding herself in a weird love square, Aisling is ready to take on the big city. So long as she has her umbrella with her.

Review

I guess I’d better place this book under the heading ‘Too Irish for Me’. It happens occasionally that I pick up a book and have to conclude that despite having lived in Ireland for over 21 years, there’s still a lot I just don’t get. And considering the numerous five-star reviews and the rhapsodic peer write-ups it’s hard not to think this is a case of ‘it’s not you; it’s me’.

And I’m still not sure what exactly an ‘Aisling’ is. Unless it defines a woman in her twenties acting as if she’s not a day older than seventeen. In fact, I’m almost tempted to call this a coming of age story, if coming of age is something you do in your late twenties after having commuted to and from Dublin for years and with a seven-year relationship under your belt. I’ve lived in Dublin and have been calling the Irish countryside home for the past 15 years or so, but if anyone challenged me to identify an ‘Aisling’ and contrast her with a ‘non-Aisling’, I’d be lost.

Then again, maybe Aisling’s belated awakening is the point of this story. Maybe, without me being aware of it, the dream of finding a partner, getting the church-hotel wedding, buying a house, and settling only minutes away from the mammy is still considered the be all and end all by numerous girls growing up in rural Ireland. If that’s the case it is a symptom I’ve been blissfully unaware of until reading this book.

This is very obviously an Irish book aimed at Irish readers. There are too many terms, expressions, and habits mentioned that wouldn’t make any sense to someone who hasn’t spent a significant amount of time on the Emerald Isle. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but it seems a shame to limit the audience for what is obviously a very popular series in such a way.

But, having said all of the above, and before anybody gets the impression I actively disliked this book, I also have to state that Oh My God is a very easy and comfortable read and that it’s impossible not to like Aisling, regardless of how often she managed to make me roll my eyes. While there was very little in this story to excite me, there wasn’t a single boring moment either. The story moves forward like a high-speed train, rarely allowing either the characters or the reader a moment to catch their breath. It also manages to dive into several heftier subjects without making the story either preachy or pondering, which I’m all in favour of.

So, all in all my reaction to this book is rather two-sided. I probably won’t read the later books in this series but I’m glad I read this title. If only because it is such a hit in Ireland. I’m also looking forward to discussing the book with my reading group. I can’t wait to discover whether I really am totally oblivious to what’s going on around me.