Normally I don't put up anything that I couldn't get into, but there's some important lessons in this one (as always - in my opinion) that need to be said.
It's a debut novel from this Irish author (born Arklow Ireland 1972), well written and interesting subject matter - a struggling Irish urban family - but I found it just too long, too over-written.
It's about 130k words, and yes I know that "fat" novels are all the rage, but she and her editors and publishers have wasted a possibly great read by including too much. It could've been culled to certainly no more than 100k words - preferably about 85k - without losing any of the spirit of the story. And okay, I've done it myself, got way too involved in the drafting process and thought every word just had to be kept because they were so great.
In my case I realised that nothing is that great and it was way too big and I cut it from about 135K to 100k words and it was the better for it. I got half way with "M FOR MAMMY" and lost interest simply because it became a bit - sort of - repetitive. In my opinion. I put it down thinking - "Geez what a waste."
T.R.E.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>