Oh My God What a Complete Aisling The Novel

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I'm not an Aisling, but I'd like to be." This statement is hollered over the noise of a busy Dublin brunch spot as I sit with a group of women, all of whom have read Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen's novel Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling, and all of whom have a sense of ownership over the title character. As author John Boyne has said: "Aisling is the real Voice of Ireland. "

Emer said: “One thing that often happens is we get pictures of people reading it by the pool in places like Tenerife and Leo Varadkar in Vegas.” Aisling is a small-town country girl who loves her Daddy, a good hotel breakfast, jeans and a nice top, and her boyfriend of seven years, John. Here she is … Aisling Ever After, the fifth and final book in the series, is out on August 31st,” Sarah enthused.

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Aisling is 31 and life is good. Yes, her relationship with boyfriend John may be over but her café, BallyGoBrunch, is booming and it isn't long before an exciting offer lands: a catering gig in The Big Apple. The synopsis reads: “With her café BallyGoBrunch flying and the door firmly closed on her relationship with John, an unexpected job offer sees Aisling boarding a business-class flight to New York in her best wrap dress and heels. As she finds her feet in the Big Apple, she throws herself into the dating game, grapples with ‘always-on’ work culture, forges and fights for new friendships, and brings her good wedges to a party in the Hamptons (much to Sadhbh’s dismay). As for the letter from Leo, I’m no Fine Gaeler but when you get a personal missive from the office of the Taoiseach, you text your mother and then put it away for safe keeping. It’s a wild reminder of seven years of writing, five books, 20-plus years of friendship, and the impact of an everyday Irish girl called Aisling. You get the picture. They both have one main street and plenty of pubs. The hurling teams play each other in almost every county final, with the competition frequently spilling off the pitch and into everyday life. As a result, Daddy sees myself and John as a sort of modern-day Romeo and Juliet but with fewer suicides and more GAA dinner-dances. Aisling is the meeting point between old Ireland and the newer, more cosmopolitan version in which Irish twenty- and thirtysomethings are trying to figure out their role, taking with them the best of old Ireland and embracing the opportunities and challenges that come with adulthood in a country that has experienced rapid change in recent decades. Normalising neurosis

Aisling never loses her essential Aisling-ness, but earns a new perspective on the bounds of her comfort zone, and a new level of empathy as she realises those around her may have struggles that aren’t visible on the surface. I've always had a soft spot for Irish authors who write the type of books which are funny and sad at the same time. I swear I read them in an Irish accent in my head as they're not nearly as good in my native Scots!In a cloud of Lynx Africa (John) and Clinique Happy (me), we slip out of the room and leg it to the lift, which – and this is proof that God exists – is apparently waiting for us. Forty-five seconds later, we walk into the diningroom, which, to my horror and disgust, is absolutely heaving. Daddy puts down his cup and reaches for a pink wafer. “Far-fetched? After going out for seven years? Sure, Denise and Liam got engaged two years ago and they met well after you two.” Oh my God, What a Complete Aisling is an almost-but-not-quite satire. It began life as a Facebook group, run by its two authors, Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen, and riffing off the Aislings of this world: a girl from rural Ireland who has “never dyed her hair”, “carries her court shoes to work in a bag” and harbours a deep suspicion of sushi (“the price of it for something that’s not even cooked. I ask you.”) They said: “We always had the idea that we would end it after five books. I think it was after we had written the second book and we sat down and I think our publisher would have been happy if we did a book every year until the end of time.

Newly single and relocated to the big city, life is about to change utterly for this wonderful, strong, surprising and funny girl, who just happens to be a complete Aisling. READ MORE: Electric Picnic speculation rife that popular band could reunite for surprise appearance Denise is twenty-seven,” I reply quietly. “She didn’t do Transition Year. She thought it was only a doss and that it would get her out of the routine of studying – she actually never shut up about it . . .” Aisling is at that age where all around her people are getting married. Surely she’s next. After all, she and her boyfriend John have been together for seven years. When a romantic getaway turns into a disaster, Aisling decides it’s time to move on. Leaving John behind, she moves from her tiny village to the bright lights of Dublin.All that fear, silence, secrecy and toxic shame [in Ireland] impacts in countless different ways on the mental health of the woman affected. But after almost 500,000 copies sold in Ireland alone, they said they want to end on a high note, and feel ready to leave the world of Aisling behind. Because when you're recovering from a broken heart and struggling to keep your café as sizzling as your award-winning sausages, it's hard to feel you've really made it as an adult. I think we have a little bit of Aisling in all of us so it's really easy to identify with her. I found myself getting quite emotional in some of the lifelike, sobering scenes but it wasn't long before I found myself laughing again. Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen need to bottle Aisling and prescribe her in place of anti-depressants; I can't imagine anyone reading it without a smile on their face. Oh My God, I am such a complete Aisling!!! From her fallen arches to her love of carbs and knowledge of points in every morsel, I connected with Aisling in a way that I have never really connected with other characters before. Maybe it is because I am Irish and therefore could relate to so much of Aisling's life and see similarities EVERYWHERE 😂 but mainly I think it was because Aisling is a little bit of everyone we know as well as a little bit of ourselves and to be honest I wouldn't want it any other way.