📖 Book Review ~ Nesting by Roisín O’Donnell

Simon & Schuster
30 January 2025

Thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

 

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 reinvent 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.

📖 My Review..

With ‘home’ no longer a safe place Ciara Fay makes the momentous decision to flee from an abusive marriage in order to take herself and her daughters to safety. With no plan in place, little money and no close family support Ciara faces the bureaucracy of the Irish housing system and comes up against so many obstacles that sometimes it feels as if she has left one difficult life only to encounter another which is just as obstructive.

Nesting is a difficult book to read as not only does Ciara’s husband present a real danger to her and her children but from necessity she reaches out to a social system which is beyond broken and which doesn’t offer much respite from the horror of simply surviving on a daily basis.  My heart broke for Ciara as she struggles with motherhood, poverty, and a husband who is hellbent on destroying her spirit, her body and her soul. However, despite what life throws at her Ciara will not be beaten, she fights for herself and her children, knowing that whatever meagre amounts she can give in terms of material possessions she more than makes up for in abiding love and the sheer determination to survive against all odds..

All credit must go to this exceptional debut writer who has highlighted the emotional aspect of homelessness in a very thoughtful way. I won’t forget Nesting in a long time.

About the Author

Roisín O'Donnell is an award-winning writer. In 2018, Roisín won the prize for Short Story of the Year at the A Post Irish Book Awards, and was shortlisted for the same prize again in 2022. She is the author of the story collection Wild Quiet, which was longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize and shortlisted for the Kate O’Brien Award. Her short fiction has featured in numerous publications, including The Stinging Fly, The Tangerineand the Irish Times. Nesting is her debut novel. She lives near Dublin with her two children.

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