Irish fiction (character novel in which quirky, lonely Vivian wanders the streets of Dublin looking for a portal to an alternate universe where she might belong). This was refreshing and funny, but I got tired of reading about her wandering journeys after the first 10 chapters or so (she has funny adventures, but rarely makes any progress). Maybe it could have just 9 chapters of her wandering the streets instead of 18? I eventually lost patience and skipped ahead (*spoiler alert*) to find that she does at least find a loyal kind of friend in "Penelope." ( )

http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2018/12/eggshells/ ( )

I just finished Eggshells by Caitriona Lally which won the Rooney Prize for "an outstanding body of work by an emerging Irish writer under forty years of age" in 2018. I have to say, when I first started reading this book I wondered what kind of idiot would award it a prize of any sort. If you like lists of anything you can think of, this is the book for you. This is a stream of consciousness novel about Vivian who considers herself a changling and spends her days trying to find a portal to send her back to where she belongs. I think she's autistic and she is alone in a home left her by her aunt. I think she lives "on the dole" because she does have a social service worker who keeps urging her to look for jobs. By alone, I mean this woman is able to live her life exactly as she wants, but she has no one to help her figure out how that should be. However, this is better than it could be - once she had parents who put her in a fire, changling that she is, to send her to her own country and get their real daughter back. So far, alone is better than that. She does have a sister, also named Vivian, who finds her quite distasteful. She also finds herself distasteful, evidently, because she will not look in a mirror; however, her very strong body odor is comforting to her. She will very occasionally bathe or wash her hair, but she prefers the way she smells without doing so. She writes up an ad for a friend and puts it on a tree, voila, she gets one as smelly and disoriented as she. She likes having a friend, within limits. She needs lots of alone time. Her behaviors in a 6-year-old would seem cute and precocious, but she's a gray-haired woman. It's a pretty short book, worth reading just for the novelty. ( )

I loved this book. Do not look for a plot, but rather think of James Joyce's Ulysses. This is a tale of Vivian's character and quirky personality. My daughter has lived in Dublin for the last three years attending university, so I visit often. My walking knowledge of Dublin helped to bring Vivian's travels alive in my minds eye. I recommend Eggshells without reservation. ( )

The marketing for the book worked, so I bought it, but while reading did not really get what it was about. There were some fun moments and clever ways of formulate thoughts, interestinf thoughts, too. But on the overall - it somehow did not really deliver on expectations. ( )

‘’When they were deciding how to bury her, I said she had always wanted to be cremated. It was a lie the size of a graveyard, but I wanted to make sure she was well and truly dead.’’

Meet Vivian. A girl that talks to chairs, decides what to eat based on colour preferences, shares Christmas wishes in April, wants to have a friend exclusively named Penelope and to work as a professional bubble blower. In Dublin, a lovely, lively, quirky capital, anything is possible. However, our lovely heroine faces an extreme number of adversities in this unique urban fairytale. Plus, she is positively of the opinion that she is a changeling and the ways out to her world of tales and fairies seem to have closed permanently….

‘’I picture a band of Smurfs combing the city in the black of night with tins of blue paint, dubbing over the street letters that offend them.’’

Starting with a beautiful epigraph with the words of William Butler Yeats on the legend of the Changeling, we are taken to Dublin and the places that are filled with Irish enchantment and magic. At least, this is Vivian’s conviction as she is always on the search for magical lands, elves, and fairytale creatures. What she wouldn’t give to become a mermaid or a tiny elf herself….Eggshells is a tender story with references to James Joyce and the whole style of Lally’s writing can be characterized as a contemporary, melancholic, quirky version of the language of the great Irish writer.

‘’I can’t explain myself to people who peer out of windows and think they know the world.’’
Vivian would have loved to be invisible. The world cannot understand her, she wants to feel safe inside herself. Therefore, the need for lists, for words to rhyme together in harmony, for language to expand. She wants to fully express herself through a newly born language and traces her walks around the city a greaseproof paper, drawing shapes made off her steps. The only ones who can understand Vivian’s world are her niece and nephew, the children who always understand what the grown-ups don’t. Especially with parents like Vivian’s sister and her husband.

‘’I wake on a damp pillow; my dreams must have leaked.’’

The book is full of beautiful quotes, Lally uses poetic sentences to share the thoughts and portray our heroine’s experiences in a sensitive and confident style. However, underneath the fresh writing lies a deep sense of sadness, loneliness, and an acute feeling that society isolates everyone who doesn’t conform to the established ideas of social decorum. Through Vivian’s eyes, we see the life of a metropolis. Accurately portrayed, we experience the isolation of the citizens in the crowded, ever-buzzing streets. Each one of us is walking quickly, to work, to our house, to another obligation, drawn to our thoughts, excluded from the life around us.

‘’{..} cemetery sounds too clean and functional- I prefer the vague foggy sound of ‘’graveyard.’’

One of the most characteristic moments in the book is Vivian’s visit in Glasnevin Cemetery, the final resting place of Michael Collins, Maud Gonne and Brendan Behan among others. Described in a calm, melancholic tone through the voice of an outsider, we see a place of togetherness in death, underlying the loneliness of our sweet heroine. Those who love Dublin will find so many references that will transport you there. I can’t help but love the reference to Ivar the Boneless, one of the most well-known Viking leaders. Walk down the Ha’penny Bridge, read The Children of Lir, one of the most famous Irish legends that provided the inspiration for The Wild Swans by Hans Kristian Andersen. I went through so many emotional states while reading Eggshells, down to the atrociously irritating small-talk by every hairdresser in the world that always makes me think I’d actually prefer to visit the dentist….Discover beautiful quotes, like this:

‘’Which side of the river would you say is earth and which would you say is Hades?’’

and this:

‘’Every dead person is ‘’Dearly Beloved’’ or ‘’Sadly Missed’’ but that can’t be true for all of them; death brings out the worst of lies.’’

If you’re looking for a ‘’story’’ in the traditional sense of the word, you’ll be disappointed. This is a beautiful attempt to enter the unique, difficult world of a wonderful person that views everything in a different, unique way. To understand that difference is beautiful, that caring and listening are more important than any dusty decorum imposed by an impersonal, distant, harsh society.

‘’I don’t know why people talk of the terror of being buried alive- surely the terror is in being alive.’’

Many thanks to HarperCollins UK and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com ( )

Eggshells was an Irish Book of the Year Finalist originally published in 2014. It was also an Amazon Best Books of the Year so Far (but I'm not sure what year.)

The aunt that Vivian lives with in Dublin, Ireland has passed away and been cremated, and Vivian brings her ashes home. She addresses envelopes to people in her aunt's address book and also in the telephone directory and inserts some of her aunt's ashes in each envelope which she then mails. Vivian is twenty something and believes that she belongs to the fairies because she doesn't fit in with normal society. Her neighbors think she's strange, and her sister (who is also named Vivian) treats her badly. Vivian spends her days wandering around Dublin trying to find portals to return her to the fairy world that she believes she comes from. She puts a flyer on a sign-post advertising for a friend called Penelope because she wants to know why Penelope does not rhyme with antelope. She finally meets Penelope (who isn't really named Penelope) and they seem to get along because they both have poor personal hygiene in common.

The interesting thing about this book is that I learned quite a bit about Dublin, Ireland and its architecture and various myths.

What I did not like about the story is that Vivian is obviously a disturbed young woman of whom no one seems to want to take care. It is revealed in the book that her parents told her that she belonged with the fairies because she didn't fit in and that her father may also have been ill because he tried some horrible things to try to send her back to the fairies. Her sister doesn't want to be bothered with her, and the neighbors think she should just find someone and get married. However, the issue to me seems to be that Vivian has some serious issues and almost certainly mental illness, and no one seems to care - they just don't want to deal with her.

Vivian herself seems happy, although lonely, as she doesn't understand how to interact with people, nor how to get along in society. If you could get past the sad fact that there is a young woman with a mental illness who no one seems to care about, then the book itself would be charming. Every day, Vivian goes out into the world and tries a different way to get back to the fairies. There are a lot of days in this 288-page book. There was no clear plot - the book didn't go anywhere, although Vivian herself certainly did. I read this over a two-day period, but honestly, it seemed like a lot longer...I just wanted some sort of closure, and there was none. ( )

Best for: People who like a whole lot of randomness in their novels.

In a nutshell: Woman who was likely abused when a child believes she’s a fairy and travels Dublin searching for her real home.

Line that sticks with me: “A politician is calling on another politician to do something. I would like to call on someone to do something but I don’t know if anyone would listen.”

Why I chose it: On independent bookstore day in Seattle, I visited 19 bookstores. Many were giving away mystery books wrapped in brown paper. These were galleys they’d received to determine if they’d carry a book. This is one of three I picked up throughout the day.

Review: The reviews on the back of this book trouble me a bit, as I feel like they are treating the main character, Vivian, as though she is simply quirky, when in truth she appears to instead be experiencing some form of mental illness that could likely benefit from some assistance. So much of her time is taken up searching for entrances to the fairy world to which she belongs. She was also likely abused by her now-deceased parents and treated very poorly by her living sister, but this isn’t explored deeply as Vivian is our narrator.

Author Caitriona Lally is talented with her prose and invokes very specific images - and smells - in the reader. As someone who has visited Dublin a fair number of times I did enjoy the recognition I felt in many of the places Vivian visited. There were certain aspects of Vivian’s personality and thinking that I could relate to, and all of it I could to some degree understand; I just don’t think the book as a whole worked well for me.

I almost gave this book three stars, but I think it needed either much more or much less; it didn’t work for me as an average-length work of fiction. ( )

I got a big kick out of Eggshells by Caitriona Lally, first published in Ireland. Vivian doesn't experience the world the way we do, and she spends a good bit of time exploring Dublin for portals that will permit her to return to the "other world" in which she must belong. Most of us learn to be somewhat smooth socially, talking about the weather and making small talk and so on. Not Vivian. For her, a simple conversation with a retail clerk that ends well is a triumph. She bravely explores the city and seeks out interaction with Dubliners, even though she knows often they will pity and reject her. She's the one we avoid sitting with on the bus, and she's the one whose normal and boring sister advises to "shower more often" (she doesn't, because she likes her own smell).

She's also one who experiences our world keenly, perhaps more keenly than we do. She loves words, and makes lists you almost want to sample like a menu, e.g., from displays in a museum, "Posset Bowl, Mether, Pitcher, Tankard, Water Bottle, Sweetmeat Box, Chalice, Salt Cellar . . ." Lally has done a virtuoso job of imagining Vivian's internal world, while positioning readers as the "normal" world trying to understand her.

I move on to the next sign: "Where a dog fouls a public place, the person in charge of the dog must remove the faeces immediately." I like the certainty of those words, there is no dithering behind vague words for the sake of politeness. I take out my notebook and write out the words from the sign. A herd of tourists gathers around me. One of them reads aloud the sign in accented English, stops reading, and looks at me and my notebook. The tourists' feet waiver, and they drift away from my sign to find the plaques of famous writers along the park's edges. I return to the buried well."

Her great-aunt left her a house filled with chairs, and she can take care of herself, although in eccentric ways (when a new week arrives, for example, she turns her clothes inside out). She is always well-intentioned, and generous, but not a patsy. When she decides she wants a friend, and that the friend needs to be named Penelope, she puts up a flyer, and it works. Her new acquaintance is an eccentric artist who is spiritually inclined, another outsider, and they develop an unusual friendship.

I was so impressed by Lally's convincing portrayal of Vivian's different views of what we accept without thinking, and of Vivian's recognition of her effect on what J.K. Rowling might call muggles. Vivian's integrity is so complete that she will live in this world just as she is, even while knowing she must more naturally belong in some other. And that in turn makes us rethink what we unquestionably accept every day. In some ways it's a sort of light-hearted "A Provincial Kook in Dublin", (cf. Diary of a Provincial Lady and A Provincial Lady in London) and in some ways it's about as deep and moving as a book can get. ( )

Not my cuppa but interesting. It just got a little tedious for me with all Vivian's quirks (including a sister named Vivian...)

Sometimes I look at my daily life and think I live a very mundane existence. And that's why I read, to have experiences I'd never have, to be people I'll never be, to live lives far different from mine. Most of the time this works and I can slip into the skin of the characters or into the place or defining situation or a novel. But sometimes, just sometimes, I cannot make the leap. I cannot find a way into a character. Perhaps my very mundanity betrays me. And that leads to a very frustrating reading experience. Unfortunately, Caitriona Lally's Eggshells was one of those experiences for me.

Vivian lives alone in the house she's inherited from her great aunt. She collects chairs, glares at the urn containing her great aunt's ashes, and frequently sniffs things to see if they've acquired her "meaty" scent yet (she's not big on hygiene). Her sister, also named Vivian, doesn't have much to do with her, clearly wanting to protect her children from their off-kilter aunt. Our main character Vivian actively avoids the neighbors but posts flyers on trees advertising for a friend named Penelope (the balance between consonants and vowels in the name is just right), cultivates a jungle of a front garden to encourage mice to move in, and walks all over Dublin looking for the portal she's convinced will send her back to fairy land, believing that she's a changeling. So you might say that she's a bit of an odd duck, an eccentric. Or you might wonder if she's so neuro-atypical that there is something more going on with her. She's an odd mix of amazingly insightful and strangely ignorant. There are textual hints that Vivian has been damaged in some way, especially by her father, but there's only a whisper of that, and only two or three brief times at that.

Vivian's character is sometimes fanciful and other times just weird. Her obsession with smelling herself and wanting her unwashed scent on everything is almost animalistic and the repetition of the same adjectives to describe this tick becomes tedious throughout the novel. Her interactions with others, almost none of whom play any sort of real major role in the novel, are telling and allow the reader to see how she is viewed in general. She's clearly considered batty, not quite right. She is definitely childlike, operating most days on a whim. Appropriate social interactions are certainly a struggle for her. And so she goes about her days walking different routes around the city, trying to get back to the fairy world she's been looking for her whole life. The structure of her days is made up on the fly and only makes sense to her. These daily perambulations are broken up by a couple of small events, her uncomfortable meetings with Penelope, a woman almost as odd as Vivian; an unsolicited and unwelcome visit to her sister's family; and their rather unsuccessful return visit to her (she, however, considers it a success because "only 50 percent of the guests left in tears").

Other readers have found Vivian charming and whimsical. I fear I am more like her annoyed older sister. She made me nuts. I wanted to get social services to intervene so that she had someone looking after her. And in the name of all that is holy, I wanted her to stop sniffing herself and take a bath. There was very little plot to the book to distract me from the fact that I wasn't enjoying spending time with this character either. Lally is obviously a talented writer given her beautiful turns of phrase and descriptive skill but she needed more than just a character who thought she was a changeling to hang a story on. As a starting concept, it was intriguing, but without a well-developed story around it, this feels like one long character exposition, not a fully fleshed out tale. I really wanted to be able to slip into Vivian's world. I just couldn't. ( )

This is a truly unique book. It is really like nothing I have ever read before. I am still not sure whether I liked it or hated it. It confused me, entranced me, angered me, almost brought me to tears and literally made me gasp at one point. It makes no sense. I almost stopped reading it but I couldn’t put it down. I think I need to read it again.

It is a conundrum.

Ms. Lally has created a character in Vivian (the main Vivian, not her sister Vivian) that stays with you for days after you finish reading the book. It is Vivian’s book – there is little about much else than her quirks and her desire to find a way to the otherworld for she has been told all her life she’s a changeling and she feels she will only be at home when she can find her own people.

Vivian advertises for a friend – but she only wants a friend named Penelope – and through some miracle she gets a response and someone almost as add as she answers and they form a sort of friendship but since both of them are so wrapped up in their own worlds they can’t really see what is going on in the other’s life. Yet they are good for each other.

I cannot explain this book for it follows no real plot. I can tell you that I read some of the most amazing turns of phrase I have ever read. So beautifully worded I stopped my reading to go back and read them again. And again. I truly stepped out of my box for this one and I am glad that I did. I am not completely sure I grasped this book. I do think it took place somewhere over my head but it was a true reading experience. ( )

Vivian doesn't feel like she fits in - and never has. Apparently, she was odd enough as a child that her parents told her she was "left by fairies," and now, living alone in Dublin, people tend to treat her like she's crazy. Friendless, she puts up an ad for a friend, specifically a friend named Penelope. In the meantime, Vivian wanders the city, mapping out a new area or neighborhood every day, seeking an escape to a better world, where there are fairies and where she will fit in. When a woman named Penelope answers her ad, Vivian's life starts to change.

"Debut author Caitriona Lally offers readers an exhilaratingly fresh take on the Irish love for lyricism, humor, and inventive wordplay in a book that is, in itself, deeply charming, and deeply moving." This bit is from Goodreads.

This is the strangest book I have ever read. Considering how many books I have read, that's saying something. It's not that I didn't like the book; in fact, I found myself laughing out a loud a few times. However, there are parts of this story that are a little disturbing. That bit about how Vivian's parents told her she was left by fairies? That means they thought she was a changeling, and if you know anything about changelings, you know that humans think they are dangerous. Vivian reveals something late in the story that ties directly into this. However, there is a hint early on: "I unfold the map. spread it on a patch of carpet and write in my notebook the names of places that contain fairytales and magic and portals to another world, a world my parents believed I came from and tried to send me back to, a world they never found but I will." (p 6)

Reading this book is like reading a book written by Delirium, the Dream King's sister. If you don't know who I'm talking about, try this: you know how, when you were a child, you'd spin around and around, making yourself dizzy, and then stop suddenly and feel that the world was tilting and spinning around you? That's what this book is like.

The narrative of this book wanders from one thing to the next, all with bits of connectivity to Vivian's desire to find herself entry into another world. She is constantly on the lookout for doors to another place, or evidence of fairies. Things make total sense to her, although to the people around her, she's a bit odd. Actually, I revise that; she is odd and disturbing. When Vivian speaks to other people, she has a tendency to ask questions that other people find strange, and as a result, people keep her at arms-length. However, at the same time, I found her character to be kind of charming. I like how she makes lists of things she likes, or words she likes. She has an unusual way of using language, and sometimes makes up words to suit her, or the situation.

Here's an example:

"I continue with my list: 'Donkey's Tufty Heads, Marshmallowed Silences, Butter Lumps, Elephants, Sooz in Winter, Pencils that Write Sootily, The NAme ALoysius, Anything Egg-Shaped, Mothes that Think They Are Butterflies....' " (p 20)

"I don't mind mice walking around my house - or maybe they think it's their house but I don't want to catch potential bubonic plague and have my own private Black Death." (p 78)

I was frustrated by the ending of this book because I felt like I had been on a long, dizzying ride, and then finished, looked around me, and realized I hadn't gone anywhere at all. However, I can't get this story out of my head, so perhaps it's the journey that's important, and not where you end up. ( )

Catriona Lally's debut novel will be released on March 14th. With a purely Irish sensibility, the first-person narrative relates Vivian's daily activities, primarily taking long walks throughout Dublin in search of a portal to another realm. It would seem that Vivian has autism as her journeys are directed by objectives only she herself can recognize, sometimes to gather groups of words related to specific topics and for various other purposes. Essentially abandoned by her family, she is both lonely and unable to connect to others in ordinary ways. There's a poignancy to Eggshells in its assertion that persons with mental or emotional differences are more often than not just like the rest of us. ( )

This is a whimsical romp through Dublin with an enigmatic Changing. Or maybe it’s not, maybe it’s a poignant glimpse into the life of a woman ill at ease with her world. Or maybe it’s just a slantways investigation of letters, words and the English language. Is it funny? Dark? Sad? Moving? You should read it and let me know what you think. I suspect everyone will get something different out of this book. Isn’t that lovely?
One last thought, I don’t think this a spoiler, but beware if you’re sensitive to those sorts of things…. There’s a female protagonist and no love interest. No boyfriend, no ex, no longing for a man real or imagined, no real thought or mention of a man or men in a romantic or sexual way at all. I don’t think that happens enough in books. It was refreshing. ( )

I got 55 pages in and decided that this was doing my head in, my mother also tried it and also gave up at the same point.

It sounded interesting, a woman who doesn't really fit in trying to find friends and a way to the otherworld, walking the streets of Dublin, mapping them later and making logic out of the path, but I just couldn't care less about her, she needed help, a lot of help.