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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
This book floored me. I hoped I would like it, having heard some good things about the author, but I didn't expect to be swept up on such a powerful and moving journey with beautifully fleshed out characters I would feel so invested in - and all in such a short book!
Donal Ryan's prose is fantastic and the way he handled the plot and pacing was phenomenal. Time and again he would create a sense of ease before hitting you in the gut with a one liner seemingly out of nowhere that pulled the rug out from under you, completely changing your whole perspective on a certain character or plot point. This ability to constantly catch the reader off-guard and call into question the morality and motives of his complex, flawed characters was incredibly impressive.
This book made me feel stressed in the best way possible, and I think that's largely because of how real he made the characters feel. On several occasions, I felt my heart beating with dread for them, and I don't cry at books, guys, but this one so very nearly got me, with one of the most bittersweet endings I think I've ever encountered. Truthfully, I got the book tingles right from the off when I read the bold, shocking and instantly gripping opening lines:
'Martin Toppy is the son of a famous Traveller and the father of my unborn child. He’s seventeen, I'm thirty-three. I was his teacher. I’d have killed myself by now if I was brave enough.'
Beyond the brilliant surface level plot and characters, I also adored the deeper themes Ryan was exploring. Repeatedly throughout the novel, he discussed the notion of couples who become so dependent on each other that they almost morph into one being, and the danger of this:
'We merged over time into one person, I think, and it's easy to be cruel to oneself.' ... 'We fastened ourselves too tightly together; we were two people sharing one life, so we had only half a life each.'
I thought this was a really interesting idea, as so much of the book is about toxic relationships (in various different forms) and about how we are capable of hurting those closest to us more than anyone else. Ultimately, however, it's a book about love, betrayal, forgiveness and the letting go of our own guilt, lest it cause a poisonous ripple effect throughout the lives of everyone around us.
Donal Ryan's prose is fantastic and the way he handled the plot and pacing was phenomenal. Time and again he would create a sense of ease before hitting you in the gut with a one liner seemingly out of nowhere that pulled the rug out from under you, completely changing your whole perspective on a certain character or plot point. This ability to constantly catch the reader off-guard and call into question the morality and motives of his complex, flawed characters was incredibly impressive.
This book made me feel stressed in the best way possible, and I think that's largely because of how real he made the characters feel. On several occasions, I felt my heart beating with dread for them, and I don't cry at books, guys, but this one so very nearly got me, with one of the most bittersweet endings I think I've ever encountered. Truthfully, I got the book tingles right from the off when I read the bold, shocking and instantly gripping opening lines:
'Martin Toppy is the son of a famous Traveller and the father of my unborn child. He’s seventeen, I'm thirty-three. I was his teacher. I’d have killed myself by now if I was brave enough.'
Beyond the brilliant surface level plot and characters, I also adored the deeper themes Ryan was exploring. Repeatedly throughout the novel, he discussed the notion of couples who become so dependent on each other that they almost morph into one being, and the danger of this:
'We merged over time into one person, I think, and it's easy to be cruel to oneself.' ... 'We fastened ourselves too tightly together; we were two people sharing one life, so we had only half a life each.'
I thought this was a really interesting idea, as so much of the book is about toxic relationships (in various different forms) and about how we are capable of hurting those closest to us more than anyone else. Ultimately, however, it's a book about love, betrayal, forgiveness and the letting go of our own guilt, lest it cause a poisonous ripple effect throughout the lives of everyone around us.
This book was stunning.
I'm struggling to give a brief summary of the plot, because although it's a relatively simple story, everything I write feels reductive of the emotional journey that Donal Ryan takes the reader on, and the larger themes that he explores in his narrative. The bare bones of the novel are this: 33-year-old, married Melody Shee finds herself pregnant by a 17-year-old boy who she was teaching to read. But it's not really a book about marriage and affairs. At the heart of this story is the bond that Melody forms with a young Traveller girl, Mary, as the focus shifts to their weird and unconventional friendship as Melody seeks atonement for something that happened in her past.
Ryan's prose is lyrical and gorgeous. It's the kind of carefully constructed writing that forces you to slow down and really take in each word. It's a short novel, but one that's not to be rushed through. I loved the experience of reading this as much as I love the impression it left me with.
This is ultimately a story about guilt, redemption, and betrayal, told with a searing and brutal honesty that made my heart race. This is one of those books that isn't afraid of confronting the ugliness of human nature - how we're capable of hurting those we love, how we lie to ourselves to cope with bad decisions we've made. I felt Melody's pain and regret so acutely while I was reading this.
[b:All We Shall Know|32968558|All We Shall Know|Donal Ryan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1498803048s/32968558.jpg|50095717] is an intense, draining, and emotionally exhausting read - and all in under 200 pages. This was my first Ryan novel, but I have [b:The Spinning Heart|15995144|The Spinning Heart|Donal Ryan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1349169242s/15995144.jpg|21753684] sitting on my shelf, and I think I need to bump it up on my TBR after how much I loved this.
I'm struggling to give a brief summary of the plot, because although it's a relatively simple story, everything I write feels reductive of the emotional journey that Donal Ryan takes the reader on, and the larger themes that he explores in his narrative. The bare bones of the novel are this: 33-year-old, married Melody Shee finds herself pregnant by a 17-year-old boy who she was teaching to read. But it's not really a book about marriage and affairs. At the heart of this story is the bond that Melody forms with a young Traveller girl, Mary, as the focus shifts to their weird and unconventional friendship as Melody seeks atonement for something that happened in her past.
Ryan's prose is lyrical and gorgeous. It's the kind of carefully constructed writing that forces you to slow down and really take in each word. It's a short novel, but one that's not to be rushed through. I loved the experience of reading this as much as I love the impression it left me with.
This is ultimately a story about guilt, redemption, and betrayal, told with a searing and brutal honesty that made my heart race. This is one of those books that isn't afraid of confronting the ugliness of human nature - how we're capable of hurting those we love, how we lie to ourselves to cope with bad decisions we've made. I felt Melody's pain and regret so acutely while I was reading this.
[b:All We Shall Know|32968558|All We Shall Know|Donal Ryan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1498803048s/32968558.jpg|50095717] is an intense, draining, and emotionally exhausting read - and all in under 200 pages. This was my first Ryan novel, but I have [b:The Spinning Heart|15995144|The Spinning Heart|Donal Ryan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1349169242s/15995144.jpg|21753684] sitting on my shelf, and I think I need to bump it up on my TBR after how much I loved this.
It is well written, but I didn't particularly enjoy reading it.
Is it possible for a book to be both hauntingly beautiful and deeply depressing? Melody Shee is a bright, educated woman in a stifling small Irish town, where modernity – her elderly father figuring out how to make coffee from videos online – and oppressive tradition collide. She first ‘lost her reason’ at fourteen, at her mother’s funeral, seeing the lie of rosary beads threaded through her still, pale hands; now at thirty-three she is often on shaky ground, contemplating suicide in the early days of her pregnancy.
This is her fourth pregnancy, the only one not to end in blood and pain and an ever-increasing distance between herself and Pat, her husband and childhood sweetheart. It is also not Pat’s child, which the community quickly discover. What they don’t know is that the father is Martin Toppy, a seventeen-year-old Traveller Melody was teaching how to read. What they don’t know is that Pat is not alone in the town in his frequenting of prostitutes – not that anyone wants to hear this, when there’s a woman to judge and shame.
Melody judges herself harshest of all, despite occasional moments of defiance; she frequently refers to herself as a bitch of various kinds and sees herself as a sinner in need of redemption. She is still haunted by the small-town politics, and the betrayal of a best friend that ended in a suicide. This is a place of dark secrets, of things not quite said, of horribleness. It is a place of both allegedly ‘respectable’ sorts and the rowdier Traveller community, getting involved in violent family feuds – a place that has been touched by the technology but not the social changes of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
So it is depressing, but also beautifully written and observed; the dialect is particularly strong and Melody, for all that she might be viewed as an unsympathetic heroine, is shockingly real and relatable.
This is her fourth pregnancy, the only one not to end in blood and pain and an ever-increasing distance between herself and Pat, her husband and childhood sweetheart. It is also not Pat’s child, which the community quickly discover. What they don’t know is that the father is Martin Toppy, a seventeen-year-old Traveller Melody was teaching how to read. What they don’t know is that Pat is not alone in the town in his frequenting of prostitutes – not that anyone wants to hear this, when there’s a woman to judge and shame.
Melody judges herself harshest of all, despite occasional moments of defiance; she frequently refers to herself as a bitch of various kinds and sees herself as a sinner in need of redemption. She is still haunted by the small-town politics, and the betrayal of a best friend that ended in a suicide. This is a place of dark secrets, of things not quite said, of horribleness. It is a place of both allegedly ‘respectable’ sorts and the rowdier Traveller community, getting involved in violent family feuds – a place that has been touched by the technology but not the social changes of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
So it is depressing, but also beautifully written and observed; the dialect is particularly strong and Melody, for all that she might be viewed as an unsympathetic heroine, is shockingly real and relatable.
I'm constantly astounded by Donal Ryan and this book is no exception. his way of writing women is superb and I am always grateful to him for that. The book is striking and beautiful , about what it is to be human and to carry with you always this need for redemption.
3.5.
This has been, unintentionally, a year for reading about the trauma of being a woman. I'm incredibly impressed with how well Donal Ryan managed to take on the voice of a woman, because Melody's inner monologues and her dialogue feel so deeply real. The entire book feels real, and tangible, and I feel like part of me has been left behind in a village that's completely fictional.
I did struggle a little with the writing style and the lengthy inner monologues, and there were some parts that dragged and left me wondering what exactly their purpose was, so I can't give All We Shall Know a higher rating than 3.5 stars. However, I did really enjoy the book, and I think that what it set out to do, it did effectively.
This has been, unintentionally, a year for reading about the trauma of being a woman. I'm incredibly impressed with how well Donal Ryan managed to take on the voice of a woman, because Melody's inner monologues and her dialogue feel so deeply real. The entire book feels real, and tangible, and I feel like part of me has been left behind in a village that's completely fictional.
I did struggle a little with the writing style and the lengthy inner monologues, and there were some parts that dragged and left me wondering what exactly their purpose was, so I can't give All We Shall Know a higher rating than 3.5 stars. However, I did really enjoy the book, and I think that what it set out to do, it did effectively.
Edit: I just realized it reminded me a lot of Fleabag, in tone and characters. Except swap the comedy parts for poetry, and bored/overworked rich characters for working class.
Gorgeously written, more violent and bleaker than I expected (CW suicidal ideation, suicide, physical violence, bullying, sex with a minor). The writing was exceptionally strong in my eyes, although the stream of consciousness format made it hard to peal away from the book when I would have needed to. Both the plot and the voice of this book are suffocating, and I had an especially hard time with the narrator's deeply toxic and violent marriage. And then, luminous pages about her relationship with her father, bathed in so much love that it always brought me back to caring about this flawed, unlovable main character, to wish her peace, above all. Extenuating but gorgeous 200 pages.
Gorgeously written, more violent and bleaker than I expected (CW suicidal ideation, suicide, physical violence, bullying, sex with a minor). The writing was exceptionally strong in my eyes, although the stream of consciousness format made it hard to peal away from the book when I would have needed to. Both the plot and the voice of this book are suffocating, and I had an especially hard time with the narrator's deeply toxic and violent marriage. And then, luminous pages about her relationship with her father, bathed in so much love that it always brought me back to caring about this flawed, unlovable main character, to wish her peace, above all. Extenuating but gorgeous 200 pages.
I received a free digital copy from the author/publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest feedback.
All We Shall Know is based around 33-year-old Melody who has just discovered she is pregnant with her 17-year-old student Martin Toppy's baby. Melody now needs to figure out what she’s going to do, while dealing with the opinions of the entire small Irish town she lives in and ingratiating herself in the traveller community Martin is from.
This is pretty interesting. Donal Ryan is masterful at weaving the stories and personalities of small Irish towns and communities full of opinions and religious observations and that’s certainly true for this one. The story is told week by week of Melody’s pregnancy and we see her face a lot of criticism and hate from the community for having a baby that is not her husbands (it was pretty intriguing to see how no-one believed her when she told some of the scandalous things that the men of the town had been up to but they were, of course, happy to judge her for an affair).
Melody isn’t a particularly nice character. She became mean and bitter in her marriage and it’s clear that she never made Pat’s life easy for him. But then she is also kind towards Martin, and Mary Crothery - another traveler that she helps learn to read - and is often a place for Mary to come to when she needs someone. Mary and Melody are both living similar lives in a way - rejected by their husbands because of baby issues, shunned by the community they live in and it was great to see the friendship they weaved. I also enjoyed the emphasis on the Irish traveling community in this from the expectations of the women to stay at home, have babies and keep house from a young age and what happens when this isn’t an option by choice or not, their views on outsiders and the whole deal with traveler feuds and how they’re sparked and dealt with. But this book had a great way of showing that the traveler community is just a community of normal people with certain values that they deem important and uphold but at the end of the day family is everything.
I definitely was not expecting the ending, it was fantastic and took me completely out of the blue.
All We Shall Know is based around 33-year-old Melody who has just discovered she is pregnant with her 17-year-old student Martin Toppy's baby. Melody now needs to figure out what she’s going to do, while dealing with the opinions of the entire small Irish town she lives in and ingratiating herself in the traveller community Martin is from.
This is pretty interesting. Donal Ryan is masterful at weaving the stories and personalities of small Irish towns and communities full of opinions and religious observations and that’s certainly true for this one. The story is told week by week of Melody’s pregnancy and we see her face a lot of criticism and hate from the community for having a baby that is not her husbands (it was pretty intriguing to see how no-one believed her when she told some of the scandalous things that the men of the town had been up to but they were, of course, happy to judge her for an affair).
Melody isn’t a particularly nice character. She became mean and bitter in her marriage and it’s clear that she never made Pat’s life easy for him. But then she is also kind towards Martin, and Mary Crothery - another traveler that she helps learn to read - and is often a place for Mary to come to when she needs someone. Mary and Melody are both living similar lives in a way - rejected by their husbands because of baby issues, shunned by the community they live in and it was great to see the friendship they weaved. I also enjoyed the emphasis on the Irish traveling community in this from the expectations of the women to stay at home, have babies and keep house from a young age and what happens when this isn’t an option by choice or not, their views on outsiders and the whole deal with traveler feuds and how they’re sparked and dealt with. But this book had a great way of showing that the traveler community is just a community of normal people with certain values that they deem important and uphold but at the end of the day family is everything.
I definitely was not expecting the ending, it was fantastic and took me completely out of the blue.
Wonderful writing. Great depth of portrayed emotions and characters. They also felt fresh and were flawed and the best kinds you sometimes hope for. The Irish dialect was a bit difficult to wrap my head around. The ending left me conflicted but I won't let it stand in the way of the absolute stunner that this book is.