Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Beach Reads In August Giveaway Hop

I am so excited to be participating another giveaway hop, hosted by one of my favorite bloggers, Stuck in Books ! Step One:  You get to choose  ONE  of my favorite beach reads books (above and each image is linked to the  goodreads  description) as a physical book or an ebook.  If the book you choose is part of a series, you can choose any book in that series.   If you choose the ebook option for the  Love Me With Lies series , you will get all three books in the series! Step Two:   Open Internationally as long as the Book Depository ships to you or you can receive an ebook! Step Three : Enter in the Rafflecopter below!  Good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway Check out the other participating blogs for more chances to win!

Snowed In? So Read Giveaway Hop!!

I am so excited to be participating in another giveaway hop, hosted by one of my favorite bloggers, Stuck in Books ! Step One:  You get to choose  ONE  of my favorite books (above and each image is linked to the goodreads description) as a physical book or an ebook.  If the book you choose is part of a series, you can choose any book in that series.   If you choose the ebook option for the  Love Me With Lies series , you will get all three books in the series! Step Two:   Open Internationally as long as the Book Depository ships to you or you can receive an ebook! Step Three : Enter in the Rafflecopter below!  Good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway Check out the other participating blogs for more chances to win!

Conversations With Myself (& Hopefully You): Should There Be ARCs?

First of all, thank you SO much for reading my very first "discussion" post .  The response was so amazing and I am so grateful to each and every one of you that took the time to read it.  I would like to preface my next discussion post in the same way -- nothing is new and I'm sure that this topic has been discussed by someone, somewhere but this is what is on my mind: SHOULD THERE BE ARCs? Truly, not everything I think about and write about is regarding Maggie Stiefvater's epic series, The Raven Cycle , but it just so happens that this discussion post will mention this series, too.   Those of us that are obsessed with this series (like me) know that there will not be any ARCs for the highly (HIGHLY) anticipated last book of this series, The Raven King . There will be no ARCs (advanced reader copies). Y'all are just going to have to trust me. https://t.co/xYDv0q1tXN — Maggie Stiefvater (@mstiefvater) December 5, 2015 Oddly, I think this ...