Oh My God What a Complete Aisling The Novel

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Until she discovers that being a proper grown-up means you can't do everything. Sometimes you will let someone down. Aisling is 31 and life is good. Yes, her relationship with boyfriend John may be over but her café, BallyGoBrunch, is booming and it isn't long before an exciting offer lands: a catering gig in The Big Apple. The follow-up to the hugely successful fiction novel 'Oh My God, What A Complete Aisling' has been released in stores in Ireland. They said: “We always had the idea that we would end it after five books. I think it was after we had written the second book and we sat down and I think our publisher would have been happy if we did a book every year until the end of time. Emer McLysaght on her comfort reads, favourite Irish author and the toughest part of writing OMGWACA". VIP Magazine. 14 December 2020.

At 12.31, we’re pulling out of the driveway, the atmosphere between us in the car a little warmer than in the diningroom, but there’s still a strange tension, hanging around like a ferocious smell. Sarah and I never expected our first book to sell even a thousand copies when it was released in 2017. We thought we might manage a few hundred between friends, family and the members of a Facebook group we’d created to share the Aisling character we’d created 10 years earlier. I’m no Fine Gaeler but when you get a personal missive from the office of the taoiseach, you text your mother and then put it away for safe keepingAisling’s neuroticism arises from her deep conscientiousness and investment in those she loves, and is considered fondly by her reader. She is presented to us as a tender, well-rounded, functional person who is a benevolent influence on people around her. She is caring, independent and robust. She is the sort of person who can function as an individual and can also prioritise others when the situation calls for it. She is a modern Irish woman, and the book presents Aisling’s neuroticism as a realistic element of her character that both benefits and stymies her depending on the context. I'm not Irish, never even been to Ireland so my entire experience of Irish families is based on reading Marian Keyes. This reminded me of her stories, with the family and the humour particularly, but the bite of bittersweet also reminded me of her books.

A successful work of fiction is bottled lightning; there is an element of pointlessness in trying to understand just what the alchemical composition is that creates the kismet of a commercially rewarding book, and specifically why Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling has resonated so powerfully with Irish people. The book is charmingly written, tender, snortingly funny and sometimes achingly sad. Motherhood rears its head, too, as Aisling and her friends each try to figure out how they might engage with the narrow template of job-marriage-children that women in their 30s are often faced with. Mercifully, the Aisling series gives us many nonjudgmental and alternative options. The message remains an empowering one: be yourself, find your joy, and the other stuff will find you.

Große Abenteuer bestreitet Aisling im Buch zwar nicht, dennoch halten ihre neuen Mitbewohnerinnen sie ganz schön auf Trab. Sie durchlebt die Tiefen des Liebeskummers, mutiert zur Partylöwin, auf der Arbeit geht es drunter und drüber und bei den Eltern ist auch nicht alles wie man es sich wünschen würde. Außerdem scheint jemand ein Auge auf sie geworfen zu haben. Es sind eben die kleinen oder größeren Aufregungen des Alltags an denen die Autorinnen uns teilhaben lassen. Das macht Aisling zu einer von uns, denn ihre Probleme oder zumindest so ähnlich, haben wir alle bestimmt schon gehabt. Ob es am Ende zum Befreiungsschlag kommt, müsst ihr selber lesen ;)

This book is full on Irish dialogue right from the get go, I honestly had to read the opening sentence three times before I understood what it meant. I still don't actually know what 'being a gas' actually means - is it funny?So we take all the criticism on board so we took out a few explicit moments, it’s still quite racy don’t worry.”