Scan barcode
sarahc3319's review against another edition
1.0
Did not finish. I got 60% through, then completely lost interest, then lost access to my e-book and have no intention of trying to find a hard copy. I hated the protagonist. I was lost in the middle, trying to figure out the whats and whys.
readingwithkt's review against another edition
I DNFd this after a very weird sexualised shower scene between father and daughter.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest and Sexual content
tay_af's review against another edition
dark
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Just a phenomenal text overall, and one of the best ways to introduce a character I’ve ever seen. I had a great time reading this book.
priscilla's review against another edition
challenging
inspiring
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
catdad77a45's review against another edition
3.0
While there's much to admire in this novel, it also bears all the unmistakable and regrettable hallmarks of being a debut. Much of it is overwritten, the main plot not kicking in until literally the halfway mark. There are weird tangential paragraphs, or whole sections, that bear no discernible purpose - one of the semi-major characters (Art) doesn't get a backstory till 20 pages from the end, at which point it's superfluous. Gael is supposedly a very sharp and intelligent person, yet she does incredibly stupid and inane things (like leaving her money unattended with the art forger, and throwing away her claim ticket at the hotel).
Essential information is often either withheld or thrown in so offhandedly as not to make much impact - 100 pages on, I had to go back to find the sections first explaining just how Guthrie wound up with twins, which really isn't then explicated till 50 pages FURTHER on! A major plot point (Gael creating an exact duplicate copy of the painting she sells to Wally to hang at the gallery showing), makes little or no sense, other than to crop up at the denouement. The 'love story' between Gael and Harper never quite rings true, and Jarleth's infrequent appearances blunt his overall importance to the philosophical underpinnings of the metaphorical title. And the whole Occupy sub-plot feels shoehorned in for no reason.
But given all that, the book does have some terrific set pieces (Chapter 6, with Gael and Wally in the plane, is well-nigh faultless) and for the most part, Hughes' prose style is eccentrically beguiling. I'd give her an A for effort, and would be interested in what she produces next, but this is more of a miss than a hit.
Essential information is often either withheld or thrown in so offhandedly as not to make much impact - 100 pages on, I had to go back to find the sections first explaining just how Guthrie wound up with twins, which really isn't then explicated till 50 pages FURTHER on! A major plot point (Gael creating an exact duplicate copy of the painting she sells to Wally to hang at the gallery showing), makes little or no sense, other than to crop up at the denouement. The 'love story' between Gael and Harper never quite rings true, and Jarleth's infrequent appearances blunt his overall importance to the philosophical underpinnings of the metaphorical title. And the whole Occupy sub-plot feels shoehorned in for no reason.
But given all that, the book does have some terrific set pieces (Chapter 6, with Gael and Wally in the plane, is well-nigh faultless) and for the most part, Hughes' prose style is eccentrically beguiling. I'd give her an A for effort, and would be interested in what she produces next, but this is more of a miss than a hit.
nietzschesghost's review against another edition
4.0
Orchid & the Wasp is a special novel and Caoilinn Hughes is a talented new literary voice ready to hit you with her character-driven, sharp as a tack debut novel. This is realist fiction at its finest, with a spiky protagonist in Gael Foess who certainly provided me with a fascinating life in which to study. She's a ruthless, intelligent individual whose beauty betrays her revealing the ugly psychopathic traits which lie just below the surface.
As others have mentioned, it is a little sporadic or episodic, but there are indeed some flashes of genuine brilliance throughout its pages. Sharply observed and quietly amusing, this is a thoroughly enjoyable romp through the trials and tribulations of a Dublin family who are falling apart. Hughes's prose, somewhat unsurprisingly, is beautiful; having discovered her past life as an award-winning poet I will be picking up some of her other work.
Many thanks to Oneworld Publications for an ARC.
As others have mentioned, it is a little sporadic or episodic, but there are indeed some flashes of genuine brilliance throughout its pages. Sharply observed and quietly amusing, this is a thoroughly enjoyable romp through the trials and tribulations of a Dublin family who are falling apart. Hughes's prose, somewhat unsurprisingly, is beautiful; having discovered her past life as an award-winning poet I will be picking up some of her other work.
Many thanks to Oneworld Publications for an ARC.
stphnt's review against another edition
4.0
complex story, well written, financier father, conductor mother, epileptic brother, determined heroine daughter
bract4813mypacksnet's review against another edition
4.0
Caolinn Hughes’ writing in Orchid and the Wasp is superb, almost lyrical, in parts. I highlighted more lines in my Kindle than in almost any book I’ve bought and reread certain lines over and over. That said, the book is not without its flaws. It is a hard read. Despite the brilliant writing, a plot I thought I’d enjoy, and and interesting characters, I had a difficult time connecting.
The protagonist has a unique voice and presence. Gael Foess is a prime example of an unreliable, unsympathetic protagonist. She is a precocious, super smart, annoying, preteen con artist who completely lacks boundaries. Her unmarried parents, a financier father and an orchestra conductor mother, had children to promote the father’s political ends. As the Irish economic crisis deepens, the father leaves the family. Over the course of the book, Gael becomes an anti-heroine. At times she is extremely protective of her mother and brother, and only occasionally becomes somewhat likable. As Gael’s ability to con expands, she raises the stakes and manipulates and uses people with premeditated cunning. She makes many mistakes and relies on her native cunning to save her neck. She repeatedly repeats the same type of mistake believing she’s doing the right thing.
There is some dialect I found difficult to read. In the middle of the book, Gael’s interaction with an elderly man on a first-class flight to New York seems far too drawn-out for the transition it is. Orchid and the Wasp tackles dysfunctional family dynamics, fluid sexuality, the economy and politics with a high-powered magnifying glass. Hughes captures her locations (Dublin, London, and New York) with ease and accuracy. Overall, a mixed bag of a book.
The protagonist has a unique voice and presence. Gael Foess is a prime example of an unreliable, unsympathetic protagonist. She is a precocious, super smart, annoying, preteen con artist who completely lacks boundaries. Her unmarried parents, a financier father and an orchestra conductor mother, had children to promote the father’s political ends. As the Irish economic crisis deepens, the father leaves the family. Over the course of the book, Gael becomes an anti-heroine. At times she is extremely protective of her mother and brother, and only occasionally becomes somewhat likable. As Gael’s ability to con expands, she raises the stakes and manipulates and uses people with premeditated cunning. She makes many mistakes and relies on her native cunning to save her neck. She repeatedly repeats the same type of mistake believing she’s doing the right thing.
There is some dialect I found difficult to read. In the middle of the book, Gael’s interaction with an elderly man on a first-class flight to New York seems far too drawn-out for the transition it is. Orchid and the Wasp tackles dysfunctional family dynamics, fluid sexuality, the economy and politics with a high-powered magnifying glass. Hughes captures her locations (Dublin, London, and New York) with ease and accuracy. Overall, a mixed bag of a book.
pgchuis's review against another edition
I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.
I have read (and partially skimmed) the first chapter of this novel and concluded that it is not for me. The part I read was from the perspective of the (in some ways) extremely precocious 11 year old Gael, as she gets into trouble at school, cares for her younger brother and manages her father (or perhaps only thinks she does). While I can see Gael has potential, I do not like her and am reluctant to read an entire novel of her outlook on life. I found the opening off-putting (Gael explains to her friends her views on virginity and hymen removal/fake restoration) and once we got to her watching her father in the shower I had had enough.
I have read (and partially skimmed) the first chapter of this novel and concluded that it is not for me. The part I read was from the perspective of the (in some ways) extremely precocious 11 year old Gael, as she gets into trouble at school, cares for her younger brother and manages her father (or perhaps only thinks she does). While I can see Gael has potential, I do not like her and am reluctant to read an entire novel of her outlook on life. I found the opening off-putting (Gael explains to her friends her views on virginity and hymen removal/fake restoration) and once we got to her watching her father in the shower I had had enough.
arirang's review against another edition
2.0
"Jarleth was involved by then and you know how your father reacts to being told a thing is impossible. Much like you do. And I admire you both for it."
The Orchid and The Wasp is a striking debut, and one that has been very well received by other reviewers whose opinion I respect. But it just was not for me: indeed as a reader who generally dislikes wisecracking narrators, particularly ones whose wisecracks are badly mistargeted, this was for me almost the perfect anti-novel.
It starts promisingly, introducing an Irish family in the early 2000s: two siblings Gael and her younger brother Guthrie (who suffers from a somatic delusional disorder that he has epilepsy), and their mother Sive, a conductor, and their banker father Jarleth (although alarm bells started to ring for me when the paragraph introducing the parents contained a worryingly flawed value judgement):
"His blue eyes were red-rimmed as a seagull’s by the time he finished his homework under the artificial lights of Barclays’ Irish headquarters at 2 Park Place in Dublin’s city centre, just around the corner (though worlds apart) from the National Concert Hall, where they often watched their mother yield a richer kind of equity from her orchestra."
After Gael tries a memorable scam at her school leading to her suspension, Jarleth, sensibly, rather than criticise her for her idea instead focuses on her inefficient use of the time off she has gained as a result.
'You have time to kill because your teachers were too provincial to appreciate your business idea – clever, if low-margin and most certainly age-inappropriate – and now you’d like to fritter away that hard-won time in a shopping centre?'
‘What’s my point, Gael?’ He always managed to keep his full lips – the same ballet shoe colour as the rest of his face – relaxed, even when the words coming out of them weren’t.
Gael put on her straitlaced voice. ‘My time’s more valuable than the time it would take to walk to Stephen’s Green to go shopping.’
'Good.’
...
‘Do you know what I do for a living ? To put this roof over our heads.’
'Global markets something derivative.’
Jarleth laughed at Gael’s unintended joke – granted her the benefit of the doubt. ‘Not anymore, but okay. What I do, Gael, has taught me something no university on the planet could have had on its syllabus. And that is that we have a very simple choice to make. Do we aspire to have worth and influence and risk tragedy; or do we aspire towards love and togetherness and risk that it won’t have been enough. You can’t have both aspirations be equally weighted.’
Gael couldn’t respond."
Her mother, by contrast, appears to lack all parenting skills. She is very nicely sketched although not a character where I found any interesting depth, so those parts focusing on her quickly lost my attention. When Gael has her first period she has to manage without any help from Sive:
Sive looked directly at the blood but her grey eyes misted over. ‘Do you . . . need anything?’
‘If by ‘anything’ you mean tampons, advice, hugs, painkillers, a pep talk, a hot chocolate . . . I’ve got myself covered, thanks. But I will take a fifty-euro guilt payment.’
Unfortunately after the opening section, the fascinating Jarleth fades into the background and Gael takes centre stage.
Ones appreciation for the novel will, I think, ultimately depend on one's view of Gael.
Her nothalfaswittyasthethinkssheis spiel reminded me of the incredibly annoying dentist in Joshua Ferris's To Rise at a Decent Hour, or indeed the 2016 Booker winner.
"Gael was still high on ibuprofen with caffeine, but she could sense how they were close – perhaps only one quip away – from killing however it was they hoped to be."
A typical example is a a false obituary, or 'obittery', she writes on her mother's behalf for Jarleth after he leaves the family home, and which Gale manages to get a newspaper to print:
"Obittery: A Loath Story On Friday 2nd May 2008, Jarleth Moeder Falker Foess, of 24 Amersfort Way, County Dublin, failed to pass the ECG-SE exam of why he should remain plugged in. The IV league of afterlives wouldn’t take him, on account of too much vain. Jarleth was a small man with a large heart attack and a malicious malignant egosarcoma. He deceived experts with his apparent good nature/ health. What were initially believed to be scruples were in fact scabies. Jarleth was a families man, borne by his children, liked by his partner, prayed for by his mother, and dearly preyed on by his girlfriend. He will be sorely miffed."
But my main issue lay with the ill-informed nature of her wit. For example in one of the first set pieces she blags an interview at LBS and one suspects the reader is intended to admire her clever repartee as she trades barbs with her interviewer. But her prepared opening line would, in reality, have led to the immediate termination of the interview on the grounds of statistical illiteracy:
‘Of the forty per cent of interviewees admitted to this MBA,’ Gael says , ‘less than a quarter are female. The odds are one in ten, against me."
Which makes no statistical sense at all. We can't tell precisely without knowing either the % of male candidates or the success rate of men, but the implied success rate for women lies somewhere between (less than) one in seven and 100%.
Does it matter? To me, yes. If your plot has your main character successfully blagging her way through e.g the New York art world, her lines and schemes need to be convincing to the reader and Gael's simply aren't.
Finance and banking is an important backdrop, and Jarleth could have been an interesting character if explored in more depth. Instead we get Gael's views - again not as astute as she believes. One telling quote - "she could openly seethe at everyone’s ignorance" - refers to her fellow Occupy movement members but comes after she has 'explained' the Libor scandal to them in a manner that makes as much sense as her dodgy statistics.
That the daughter of a derivative specialists ends up in the Occupy movement is my personal nightmare. Although here is the book's strong point - the Orchid and Wasp (per Gilles Deleuze’s and Felix Guattari) relationship between Gael and Jarleth that gives the book its title and indeed its inspiration. Despite her best efforts, her father's valuable life lessons inform Gael's views and actions, for example when discussing the likelihood that the Occupy protests succeed with a fellow activist:
"‘Honestly, Nina?’ She thinks about saying it: I’m an aspiring one-percenter. It’s only sane to be appalled at the country’s dysfunction but, come on, kid. Calling it out gets you nowhere. Enormous calamities cause change. Civil wars. Natural disasters. Not street marches. Once customs are established and prejudices rooted, reform is a dangerous and fruitless enterprise, said Rousseau. The truth brings no man a fortune; and it’s not the people who hand out embassies, professorships and pensions. The people give out pretzels, used clothes and coping mechanisms. Gael wipes the crumbs from her chest and admits, instead, ‘I wouldn’t have your best interests at heart.’"
Overall, a striking but flawed character study of a striking but flawed character. Not a book for any insight into financial markets but one which, depending on personal taste, may appeal. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC, but not a book for me.
The Orchid and The Wasp is a striking debut, and one that has been very well received by other reviewers whose opinion I respect. But it just was not for me: indeed as a reader who generally dislikes wisecracking narrators, particularly ones whose wisecracks are badly mistargeted, this was for me almost the perfect anti-novel.
It starts promisingly, introducing an Irish family in the early 2000s: two siblings Gael and her younger brother Guthrie (who suffers from a somatic delusional disorder that he has epilepsy), and their mother Sive, a conductor, and their banker father Jarleth (although alarm bells started to ring for me when the paragraph introducing the parents contained a worryingly flawed value judgement):
"His blue eyes were red-rimmed as a seagull’s by the time he finished his homework under the artificial lights of Barclays’ Irish headquarters at 2 Park Place in Dublin’s city centre, just around the corner (though worlds apart) from the National Concert Hall, where they often watched their mother yield a richer kind of equity from her orchestra."
After Gael tries a memorable scam at her school leading to her suspension, Jarleth, sensibly, rather than criticise her for her idea instead focuses on her inefficient use of the time off she has gained as a result.
'You have time to kill because your teachers were too provincial to appreciate your business idea – clever, if low-margin and most certainly age-inappropriate – and now you’d like to fritter away that hard-won time in a shopping centre?'
‘What’s my point, Gael?’ He always managed to keep his full lips – the same ballet shoe colour as the rest of his face – relaxed, even when the words coming out of them weren’t.
Gael put on her straitlaced voice. ‘My time’s more valuable than the time it would take to walk to Stephen’s Green to go shopping.’
'Good.’
...
‘Do you know what I do for a living ? To put this roof over our heads.’
'Global markets something derivative.’
Jarleth laughed at Gael’s unintended joke – granted her the benefit of the doubt. ‘Not anymore, but okay. What I do, Gael, has taught me something no university on the planet could have had on its syllabus. And that is that we have a very simple choice to make. Do we aspire to have worth and influence and risk tragedy; or do we aspire towards love and togetherness and risk that it won’t have been enough. You can’t have both aspirations be equally weighted.’
Gael couldn’t respond."
Her mother, by contrast, appears to lack all parenting skills. She is very nicely sketched although not a character where I found any interesting depth, so those parts focusing on her quickly lost my attention. When Gael has her first period she has to manage without any help from Sive:
Sive looked directly at the blood but her grey eyes misted over. ‘Do you . . . need anything?’
‘If by ‘anything’ you mean tampons, advice, hugs, painkillers, a pep talk, a hot chocolate . . . I’ve got myself covered, thanks. But I will take a fifty-euro guilt payment.’
Unfortunately after the opening section, the fascinating Jarleth fades into the background and Gael takes centre stage.
Ones appreciation for the novel will, I think, ultimately depend on one's view of Gael.
Her nothalfaswittyasthethinkssheis spiel reminded me of the incredibly annoying dentist in Joshua Ferris's To Rise at a Decent Hour, or indeed the 2016 Booker winner.
"Gael was still high on ibuprofen with caffeine, but she could sense how they were close – perhaps only one quip away – from killing however it was they hoped to be."
A typical example is a a false obituary, or 'obittery', she writes on her mother's behalf for Jarleth after he leaves the family home, and which Gale manages to get a newspaper to print:
"Obittery: A Loath Story On Friday 2nd May 2008, Jarleth Moeder Falker Foess, of 24 Amersfort Way, County Dublin, failed to pass the ECG-SE exam of why he should remain plugged in. The IV league of afterlives wouldn’t take him, on account of too much vain. Jarleth was a small man with a large heart attack and a malicious malignant egosarcoma. He deceived experts with his apparent good nature/ health. What were initially believed to be scruples were in fact scabies. Jarleth was a families man, borne by his children, liked by his partner, prayed for by his mother, and dearly preyed on by his girlfriend. He will be sorely miffed."
But my main issue lay with the ill-informed nature of her wit. For example in one of the first set pieces she blags an interview at LBS and one suspects the reader is intended to admire her clever repartee as she trades barbs with her interviewer. But her prepared opening line would, in reality, have led to the immediate termination of the interview on the grounds of statistical illiteracy:
‘Of the forty per cent of interviewees admitted to this MBA,’ Gael says , ‘less than a quarter are female. The odds are one in ten, against me."
Which makes no statistical sense at all. We can't tell precisely without knowing either the % of male candidates or the success rate of men, but the implied success rate for women lies somewhere between (less than) one in seven and 100%.
Does it matter? To me, yes. If your plot has your main character successfully blagging her way through e.g the New York art world, her lines and schemes need to be convincing to the reader and Gael's simply aren't.
Finance and banking is an important backdrop, and Jarleth could have been an interesting character if explored in more depth. Instead we get Gael's views - again not as astute as she believes. One telling quote - "she could openly seethe at everyone’s ignorance" - refers to her fellow Occupy movement members but comes after she has 'explained' the Libor scandal to them in a manner that makes as much sense as her dodgy statistics.
That the daughter of a derivative specialists ends up in the Occupy movement is my personal nightmare. Although here is the book's strong point - the Orchid and Wasp (per Gilles Deleuze’s and Felix Guattari) relationship between Gael and Jarleth that gives the book its title and indeed its inspiration. Despite her best efforts, her father's valuable life lessons inform Gael's views and actions, for example when discussing the likelihood that the Occupy protests succeed with a fellow activist:
"‘Honestly, Nina?’ She thinks about saying it: I’m an aspiring one-percenter. It’s only sane to be appalled at the country’s dysfunction but, come on, kid. Calling it out gets you nowhere. Enormous calamities cause change. Civil wars. Natural disasters. Not street marches. Once customs are established and prejudices rooted, reform is a dangerous and fruitless enterprise, said Rousseau. The truth brings no man a fortune; and it’s not the people who hand out embassies, professorships and pensions. The people give out pretzels, used clothes and coping mechanisms. Gael wipes the crumbs from her chest and admits, instead, ‘I wouldn’t have your best interests at heart.’"
Overall, a striking but flawed character study of a striking but flawed character. Not a book for any insight into financial markets but one which, depending on personal taste, may appeal. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC, but not a book for me.