Nesting
As seen:
By Roisin O'Donnell
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2 reviews
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An extraordinary and urgent debut by a prize-winning Irish writer, NESTING introduces an unforgettable new voice in fiction.
On a bright spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change everything. Grabbing an armful of clothes from the washing line, Ciara straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away. Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe.
This was meant to be an escape. But with dwindling savings, no job, and her family across the sea, Ciara finds herself adrift, facing a broken housing system and the voice of her own demons. As summer passes and winter closes in, she must navigate raising her children in a hotel room, searching for a new home and dealing with her husband Ryan’s relentless campaign to get her to come back. Because leaving is one thing, but staying away is another.
What will it take for Ciara to rebuild her life? Can she ever truly break away from Ryan’s control – and what will be the cost?
Tense, beautiful, and underpinned by an unassailable love, hope and resilience, this is the story of one woman’s bid to start over.
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Reading was inescapable, like experiencing a car crash in slow motion. Ciara’s character and the children were so well crafted and developed that as a reader you feel every pinch, every tug on her emotions. The characters and circumstances feel real, brought to vivid, unrelenting life by great writing. Trauma, abuse, coercion, hardship and love written vividly with depth and insight. Full of emotion. Absorbing and intense. I did long for some redemption, thank goodness for the kindness of Cathy and Diego. I was sometimes frustrated by Ciara’s bad decisions (shouting at my book like a mad woman), the consequences and desperation while understanding and sympathising at the same time; as trapped in her inescapable narrative as she was, clinging onto that thread of hope and her love for her children.
Beautifully written
Tackling a difficult topic, hard to read at times but Roisin has captured the depth and underlying strength of a mum fighting fof her children and herself.
