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Review: Factory Girls by Michelle Gallen



Blurb from Goodreads:
It is the summer of 1994. In a small town on the Irish border Maeve and her two friends have just secured summer jobs in the local shirt factory. They plan to make as much money as they can while waiting for their A Level results before getting out of town and away to the UK. As the summer progresses and the marching season begins, tensions in the factory start to rise between the Catholic and Protestant workforce and events escalate putting Maeve's chance of escape in jeopardy.
My Review:
I did not know what to expect when I started this book and I'm so glad I didn't -- it allowed me to fully be submersed in this world immediately.  This felt so raw, so real and also completely irreverent.  It is honest, tragic, and also hopeful.  I really believe everyone should read this book -- it will make you think of the world in a new way and, particularly, Northern Ireland in a way you probably didn't imagine.

This book blew my mind, and I give it my highest recommendation.  Factory Girls comes out next week on November 29, 2022, you can purchase HERE, and I hope you consider reading this one!  
She didn't want the reunification of Ireland -- anyone with a glimmer of wit knew that the Free State didn't want them: they'd fucked off after Partition, leaving the north in the shit. And she'd no desire to bend over and accept Britain as her lord and master -- centuries of British rule had taught her she could trust the Brits as far as she could throw them. But she wished they'd cop themselves to say, 'Fuck them, fuck the whole lot of them,' before throwing the guns, Semtex, timers and rocket launchers in a pile and pouring the incendiary liquid of their bad memories over the whole frigging lot and setting fire to it. It broke Maeve's heart to imagine being left to themselves -- free of the Brits, relieved of the Free Staters, unencumbered by bosses - to grow up and grow old.  
But she'd learned to keep a lid on feelings like that. On most feelings. So she dried her eyes and kept them of the prize: getting the fuck out of the town.

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