Reviews

The July pick for the @maevebinchybookclub was Firefly Summer and as per usual I started this one right at the end of July, not leaving myself much time to read this massive book at around 900 pages. Although it wasn't my favourite Maeve Binchy book, I still enjoyed this one which is set in Mountfern and follows the lives of all the people of the village. As you can imagine when the book follows the perspective of a whole village there were a lot of characters to remember in this one! I did at times get a little confused but it's easy to remember the main characters as they constantly appear throughout. The book is set in 1962, when an Irish American millionaire Patrick O'Neill comes to town to rebuild the local manor house ruin. We see the tensions and relationships between the locals and this outsider and how that develops over time. Full of family and local village drama throughout.

I do feel in this book that the character development was done well and you got more of an insight into the characters in comparison to some of Binchys earlier work. In particular I loved the characters of Kate and Rachel.

Overall, a nice cosy read if you enjoy small town stories with lots of characters.

shoesmcdaid's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

joneskat's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

debsonthecouchwabook's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

dani_sherlock's review against another edition

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4.0

I find this book quite tough to review for the simple reason that the writing and pace were inconsistent.

The first 3/4 of the book were fantastic, Binchy exquisitely captures the ache, longing, malaise and discontent of being teenager. So much so that I could get over the unnecessary details about secondary characcters like Papers Flynn, Marianne Johnson and Sheelah Whelan. The Ryan family are great protagonists and, like all Binchy's main characters, are drawn with complexity and nuance. I liked the O'Neill characters, with the exception of Kerry who is a bit too much of stereotype.

However, the last quarter was slow and I did not enjoy the end of the book. Grace's change in personality was not believable and made me feel let down.. I do not like an ending where everything is neatly explained but I did feel that Micheal, Dara and Grace needed more resolution as characters.

I read Maeve Benchy vociferously as a teenager and her books made me fall in love with Irish literature, so much so that I wrote a thesis on trauma and memory in Irish literature. So my judgement will always clouded by these memories of reading her writing.

parchouliprentice's review against another edition

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4.0

i thoroughly enjoyed this! i loved growing up with the twins and their crew. scope and breadth of this tale is just my style. this was my first book by binchy, and i immediately purchased another!

caraghwhitehead's review against another edition

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1.0

Very disappointing read. It took me ages to get into it and then it was an incredibly slow story. The characters all felt one dimensional and the ending was awful though the story did speed up towards the end.

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