The Country Girls

Edna O'Brien describes growing up in an Irish village in great detail. The characters are all well drawn and interesting and the story moves along at a great pace.

It is, even 60 plus years on, not hard to imagine why this book caused such controversy. The precociousness of the young protagonists; the much older men and their lusting for a touch of young flesh; the squalor, the casual cruelty, and especially the misogyny and domestic violence that would, even today, cause a great swell of approbation.In many respects the book, read today, might seem tame but a lot of that would be because of the easy going flow of the easy-going prose. Edna O Brien paints evocative pictures with simple strokes. The poetic descriptions, the believable dialogue and the colourful, real life characterisations are all comfortably concise. We laugh, we cry and we worry as the narrative compels. The author doesn’t try too hard to take us were she wants to send our emotions. Instead O’ Brien seems to build her characters and situations with an ease that takes the reader along with her without any trepidation despite, as we suspect, we move into the awfulness of the places she takes us.This is therefore an easy book to read. Only later does the reader worry about what they have have been eased into imagining. I suppose the readers of the book in the 1960s felt the jolt of a book that felt m ore confrontational to the one we read today after so many stories of innocence lost.This is the first Edna O’ Brien book I have read. I heard of here recent death and realised I had never read one of her books. I thought I’d start at the beginning and now I can’t wait to read more

I'd already read The Girl with Green Eyes so didn't read in the right order. I know Edna O'Brien is well respected as an author and although readable and fairly enjoyable it didn't really grab me.

Searched for The Country Girls + kindle and got this. If you use a microscope on the photo of the cover you might spot it's the stage play - or if you read the blurb because you don't know much about the book - but if you know about the book, so don't do either, then you, like me, will be stuck with the stage play.

Edna O'brien's play which was an adaption based on her book. An evocative look at old Ireland through the experiences of two girls growing up, and surviving and escaping from the cruel convent school system, and learning about life's realities on the way. Entertaining and thought-provoking.

Disappointing because Edna O'Brien is a successful author, and yet this book is not up to the standard I expected - it's cliche-ridden , seems hardly edited, like it's the first draft. The characters don't have much depth, and there's not much of a plot. Maybe the book is famous because it was one of the first to describe a young life in Ireland at that time?

A beautifully written, evocative description of life in Ireland before the 'economic boom' years. Very believable,particularly the first few chapters taking place in the country.I was less impressed with the description of the last chapters about the Dublin life of the two friends.

This is a wonderful edition (penguin in 1960's) of a rare and fine book. To reread it now has been inspiring funny and a real insight into how much she influenced me, back when I was about 16. Don't read it in the Orion edition. It's full of scanning mistakes.

Libro per esame, arrivato in fretta, lettura interessante

Another example of Edna O'Brian's brilliant work.

I loved this book. It is a wonderful and realistic coming of age book, probably a bit autobiographical. The author was taught by the Sisters of Mercy, therefore her keen knowledge of the school setting ... the walls and walkways, the religious art on all of the walls, the darkness, the sternness. The character traits were spot on also. This was a wonderful read.

He leído este verano la trilogía de Edna O'Brien y el libro que más me ha gustado ha sido el primero por la etapa de las vidas de estas dos amigas con descripciones del paisaje y la sociedad irlandesa de ese momento.De todas formas resultan muy entretenidos y en un inglés muy accesible y sencillo, sin resultar ampuloso.Muy recomendable

Appalling, that is what I feel about this picture of Ireland in the sixties. It is beautifully written, with something of a painter's eye or a poet's, never allowing itself to wallow in sentimentality.