Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - The Glorious Heresies

Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney

8 reviews

gnothiseauton's review

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challenging dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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marabender's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This was an amazing novel, and also the saddest book I have read in a long time. Worth the read, but make sure you’re in an ok head space to start it.

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beriboo's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This is a dark story of five people whose lives interweave with each other over the course of several years. Based in modern day Cork, Ireland, we see prostitution, drug abuse, drug dealing, murder and complicated relationships.

There are five main characters in this story, Jimmy the local “kingpin”, Maureen his mother, Georgie a local prostitute, her dealer Ryan and his girlfriend Karine. There are also side characters, Ryan’s father Tony and a local busy body Tara.

I can’t say any of the characters are particularly likeable. I started off liking Ryan, a young boy who has lost his mum and is trying to find his place in the world. But his story takes him to a dark place and his relationship with Karine is very toxic. However, I thought the writing of their relationship and how it gradually turned into something abusive was very well done.

For a lot of the characters, especially Tony and Maureen, your introduction to them isn’t very warming, but the more you learn about them, the more you understand why they are the way they are.

A lot happens, it starts with a murder that starts to bring these characters lives together, and is a little thread throughout the book. It takes you into character’s pasts, and also jumps a few forward as their stories progress. I don’t think there is any part of the book that lags or doesn’t have a good pace to it.

I did enjoy the story, despite it being quite dark topics (make sure to look up the content warnings!) but the book was very well written. The characters have a look of layers to the and you are gradually introduced to them in a subtle way. There is some humour written into the book, which breaks up the heavy topics.

For this I listening to the audiobook, and this is where it lost some points for me. The narrator had an odd way of reading, the tempo would pick up suddenly and there would be no breathes, particularly during dialogues meaning you couldn’t tell who was speaking. The voices for the women were often whiny and grated on me slightly. I believe I would have enjoyed this more if I had read the book and not listened to it.

This is a brutal tale, full of heavy and sometimes uncomfortable topics, still it is quite a journey and I can see why it’s an award winner.

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lucesandin's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

The Glorious Heresies is a really gritty Irish novel featuring drugs, murder, alcohol, gangland violence, prostitution, domestic violence, sexual abuse and more. It’s also surprisingly funny, in a dark kind of way. There’s an intriguing cast of colourful characters including Maureen, the estranged mother of gangland boss Jimmy, who accidentally commits murder; alcoholic Tony who does a lot of Jimmy’s dirty work, and Tony’s 15 year old son Ryan, already a drug dealer but determined not to grow up to be like his abusive father. The characterisation is brilliant, making it easy to root for characters, who at first glance seemed pretty unlikeable. I couldn’t help want the best for Ryan and relate to the innocent hopeful boy inside the tough and sometimes angry exterior, even when he was failing miserably to live up to his goals. The writing is vibrant, full of energy and emotion. I’m glad I listened on audio since I think it really let the author’s voice shine. The anger at the Catholic Church and at government agencies for the way they treated those on the fringes of society was palpable.

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thecatsmother's review

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challenging dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The Glorious Heresies is a bleak contemporary Irish literary gangster story set in Cork, about the ripple effects of an accidental killing on a group of interconnected no-hopers. I had not heard of the author previously and it was something of a lucky dip pick from my Book Club shelf, but ended up liking it more than I expected - although it certainly wouldn’t be for everyone. I’d describe it as like an Irish Trainspotting, with the qualifier that I couldn’t read Irvine Welsh’s book but loved the movie.

Ryan Cusack is 15 and desperate to escape his mundane life, society’s judgement, and his alcoholic father’s fists, finding solace in the arms of his beautiful girlfriend - and his new career as a drug dealer. Tony has his own problems - left to raise six kids when his wife died, he’s now been roped into helping dispose of a body when the city’s scariest gangster has to clean up his nutty estranged mother Maureen’s mistaken murder of an intruder. Unhappy hooker Georgie is looking for her missing boyfriend when she is rescued by born again Christians, but when she knocks on Maureen’s door, she sets off a chain of events that endanger them all.

This was a dark and gritty, but yet more literary read than I would normally go for. The curly writing and Irish slang and idioms meant I often had to read sentences twice to get their meaning. I didn’t find it humorous so found some of the quotes on the cover rather misleading. The characters are mostly unlikeable but wonderfully drawn - our sympathies shift back and forth as people horribly damaged by their depressing environments, even though most of their misfortunes are self-inflicted. Sex, drugs and guilt dominate their lives and as with all Irish novels, religion and poverty are always in the background. As usual with literary fiction I found the ending disappointingly inconclusive, although then discovered that this is only the first part of a trilogy (so far at least) and I would be interested to find out what happens next.

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fionac326's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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deedireads's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.

TL;DR REVIEW:

Brutal, raw, and incredibly told, The Glorious Heresies will grab your heart when you’re not looking and then crack it wide open. I can see why it won so many prizes.

For you if: You read literary fiction that examines what it means to be human in a way that’s hard to look away from.

FULL REVIEW:

“He left the boy outside its own front door. Farewell to it, and good luck to it. From here on in it would be squared shoulders and jaws, and strong arms and best feet forward. He left the boy a pile of mangled, skinny limbs and stepped through the door a newborn man, stinging a little in the sights of the sprite guiding his metamorphosis. Karine D’Arcy was her name.”

^^ So begins The Glorious Heresies, which I read as part of the #ReadingWomen challenge; it won the Women’s Prize in 2016. And with opening lines like that, it’s easy to see why.

The book introduces us to several characters who become randomly interconnected when an older woman hits an intruder in the head, killing him, and her mobster son makes it disappear for her. Our characters are the woman, her son, the dead man’s girlfriend (who is a prostitute), and her teenage her drug dealer, and his father, who is also the man whom the mobster hired to help dispose of the body. Keeping up? lol.

Anyway, what Lisa McInerney has done in this novel is extraordinary in that I didn’t realize how attached I was to the characters until my heart was breaking wide open for them. And once the gutting started, it didn’t stop. These characters are imperfect and struggling and they have a lot of trauma. They’re not particularly good people, but she shows the nuggets of good in their hearts that make you want them to all just live happily ever after, for goodness sake. Ryan — the son/drug dealer — got me the hardest. Literally my heart hurts just thinking about him.

This is very, very much a character-driven plot. It doesn’t race ahead, and yet it’s propulsive nonetheless. Expertly crafted and beautifully rendered, as they say. As one who wins the Women’s Prize does.

TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Child abuse; Hard drug and alcohol usage; Alcoholism; Abortion; Rape

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