First up for Reading Ireland Month, hosted by Cathy at 746 Books –

Orchid & the Wasp by Caoilinn Hughes

The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes was one of my favourite books of 2024, so I was keen to read more by her. Orchid & the Wasp was next on the list.

It focuses on Gael Foess, beginning when she is a child and following her and her family for another twenty years. It is clear from the outset that Gael and her brother, Guthrie, are somewhat neglected by their single-minded, careerist parents – their father works in finance and their mother is a celebrated conductor and composer. When her father walks out during the 2008 crash, the family falls apart, and Gael is determined to forge her own way. The story follows Gael to London and New York, intertwined with Guthrie’s story of becoming an artist and a young, single father.

In The Alternatives, Hughes created a cast of memorable and beautifully detailed characters. The balance between character-study and plot-driven action was perfect. She also created a story that made me laugh and cry (in a book, this is my kryptonite). In Orchid & the Wasp, one of her earlier novels, that balance isn’t quite achieved. There’s humour, but it’s stretched a little far; there’s melancholy, but it’s either glimpses or over-explained; and elements of the plot (particularly the lengthy Occupy Wall Street scenes) were flabby. Hughes tried lots of things in this novel that she has gone on to refine.

Just one quote: Gael’s mother reflects on the family –

Grief is its own addiction and he wanted badly to be sober

Will absolutely read more from her.

3/5

Sugartown by Caragh Maxwell

Sugartown by Caragh Maxwell is the story of a young woman, Saoirse, who loses direction and is forced to return to her family home in Ireland. Except that the family home isn’t quite the same as the one she had left years before – her mother has remarried and has three young daughters. The ‘new’ family live in a large, modern house and Saoirse’s mother, who was once brittle and distant, is now the complete opposite, and is doting and affectionate with her younger children.  

She loved me because I was her child. She was furious with me for the same reason.

As Saoirse tries to forge a better relationship with her mother, and reconnect with old friends, she reflects on the meaning of home and other people’s expectations of where she ‘should’ be at this stage in her life.  

I knew something was ending but nothing felt like it was beginning.

I enjoyed Maxwell’s straightforward style of writing and Saoirse‘s voice was well-pitched. The exploration of social anxiety and a sense of uncertainty stretching into a person’s twenties was well done –

…I’d never learned how to bond with another girl on that labyrinthine, complicated level that other women seemed to form their friendships. I’d never had a big group of girlfriends, never been a bridesmaids, a godmother, not even a 3 a.m. emergency-call contact.

However, while I enjoyed the book as I was reading, it did not leave a deep or lasting impression – very difficult to avoid Sally Rooney comparisons and ultimately, I don’t think Sugartown offered anything new.

3/5 (half a star for the adorable little sisters).