Majella has rarely left the small town where she lives in Northern Ireland. She works at the local chip shop (the Catholic one, not the Protestant one on the other side of town), and lives with her alcoholic mother, and that's the way it's been since her da mysteriously disappeared a decade earlier. The book starts just after Majella's gran died following a horrific attack in her rural home, and though Majella is still going about business as usual, tallying up all her many dislikes and (many fewer) likes as she goes about her day, to the reader, it's obvious that there's some processing going on.
This debut novel is a detailed look at life in a small, poverty-stricken town, still dealing with the aftermath of the Troubles. It's a bit like an odd mix of Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Nina Stibbe's Paradise Lodge, and the Netflix TV show Derry Girls — three creations that have very little in common. But somehow it works.
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