A review by siobhano
The Island of Longing by Anne Griffin

3.0

I bought lots of books in Ireland and this is one of them. "The Island of Longing" is about a woman who left her home island and work as a skipper to be with her husband in Dublin and have kids. The family lives in Dun Laoghaire and the protagonist's daughter vanishes. As the narrative switches between chapters with the mother as the focaliser, only the reader knows what happened to the daughter in one or two sentence interludes between chapters. After the daughter has been taken, so we learn, the mother struggles. Years later, her marriage is in shambles and she has breakdowns, which is why her husband asks her to leave. She returns to her father on the island and takes up her work as a skipper again, including old feuds and secrets that do not make her life easier. While she does find some healing, she is still convinced that her daughter is still alive...

Raw, touching, sad, and sometimes quite frustrating, this book also oozes the love for the sea, being a skipper and being outside in nature. I was quite engaged and never bored. So 3.5-4 Stars because I found it terribly that the partly truly delusional and endangered mother did not really receive any help. I also found the ending extremely frustrating.