In the hands of a skilled writer that lesser-spotted animal, the second-person voice, can be used to great effect in fiction. That said, I did feel slightly mislead by the books synopsis. Making it out to be me more of a dark, psychological thriller than it turned out to be. Though there was some semblance of slow building tension, it never really amounted to much. And to be honest, felt rather anticlimactic towards the end. All of these aspects coalesce to create a text that is rich and absorbing, and point to a writer coming into her own, assured in what it is she is trying to do. For the reader, this is thrilling and engaging. We are carried along by the prose; we trust it knows where it’s going. Niamh Donnelly

She is the author of Tennis Lessons (2020) and Common Decency (2022), both published by Doubleday UK.This was a book I struggled to write a perfect review about so I do apologise for the ramble that I have put together. It’s very rare that a book leaves me like this but nonetheless it was a very well written novel. In the expert hands of this writer, it becomes increasingly difficult to decide which character is speaking until they almost become synonymous.

It’s about low self esteem and feeling you don’t belong anywhere, a misfit. And then it’s about shame and trauma, burying yourself deep. About stumbling between alcohol fuelled sexual encounters that generally don’t end well. With its quirky, outsider narrator and atmosphere of discontent, this first novel has echoes of Tessa Kavanagh’s Things We Have in Common, Lottie Moggach’s Kiss Me First and Michelle Gallen’s recent debut Big Girl, Small Town.

Retailers:

This is the voice that rings in your ears. Because you never say the right thing. You're a disappointment to everyone. You're a far cry from beautiful - and your thoughts are ugly too. I liked the structure of this book - rather than the traditional chapters, you read about momments in her life, from childhood until the age of 28. Some are short, and only minutes apart, whilst at other times a year may pass.

A beautifully written and psychologically incisive bildungsroman...the arrival of a young writer to watch, Observer Upstairs, Siobhán is consumed by her affair with a married man. Her days revolve around his sporadic texts and rare visits. She barely notices the strange girl who lives below and dawdles in the foyer. Lily, recently moved to a flat in Belfast after the death of her mother, is struggling in her isolation. When she encounters Siobhan, a girl who lives in the flat upstairs, Lily perceives her as someone who has a happier, fuller life than her own. Lily fantasises about them forming a friendship, being out for a drink together, but she cannot see any way to bring this about.

Select a format:

Fundamentally intimate . . . beguiling . . . A novel about being normal that is anything but. Irish Independent The story has all the makings of a great novel but it didn’t come together. The characters were too similar in many ways - Lily’s mother sounded a lot like Siobhán bizarrely. The episodes did not knit together well. None of the characters were likeable. Siobhán’s relationship with Andrew was interesting in a car-crash sense (hard to look away) but it wasn’t enough to save the book. The epilogue was incongruous and just left me shrugging, I didn’t care. But Lily is keeping a close eye on her neighbour, whose life seems so much better and more fulfilling than her own. When resentment evolves into something darker and more urgent, she decides to teach Siobhan a lesson... The book follows the main character from the time she is three years old up until her late twenties, and never flinches away from things we prefer not to talk about, from conversations we were never supposed to hear to dark thoughts we can't unthink, from ingrown toenails to blood clots, from times we were the victim to times when we were the bully.