A heart warming, touching story of a traditional Irish family. 
I wanted to love this book but I found it a struggle at points. It is a very good debut novel and I will certainly read books by this author in future.

I really enjoyed this book.  It has great main characters and a really good story line.  I would highly recommend this book to anyone.

I had mixed feelings about this book. I liked the idea of it but I did struggle at times.

The mother, Annette, suffers a stroke and is hospitalised in Dublin.  Their father tries to keep things going but struggled to look after Jenny and her young brother Jacob who has autism and is non-verbal.  However their Granny Mae-Anne moves in and takes charge.

The story is mostly narrated by Jenny.  The conversations between Jenny, her Da, and her Granny are great.  Jenny tells it like it is and as she sees it.  She's a lovely character with quite an imagination. She seems older than her years.  These bits are funny, poignant, well written.  I loved the Irish turn of phrase. I could picture the scene and the conversation.  These are the parts I liked. There was also input from the mother Annette and Jacob in the form of what they were thinking. This was where I struggled a bit.

Annette's thoughts are very disjointed and don't always make much sense.  I understand this.  The character had suffered a devastating stroke and she wasn't able to express herself or do anything for herself and I suppose the mixed up narrative represents this.

Jacob's thoughts were a bit more interesting as he tries to make sense of things.  Not only is he autistic, he's also only coming up for 6.  In fact he has his 6th birthday in the story.  Jenny seems to be good at knowing what he wants or needs.

The granny, Mae-Anne, is a wonderful, strong character.  She obviously loves the children and tries to shelter them from what has really happened to their mother.  There are some wonderful conversations between her and Jenny, and with Jenny's Da'.  At times I laughed out loud.

It took me much longer than usual to read this book so something was missing, or it might have been I was reading it at the wrong time for me.  I liked all the characters and generally the writing was good and yet for me, that 'thing' that makes me want to sit up late to finish a book just wasn't there.  In fact it was fairly easy to put aside.

I'm giving it 3 (and a bit) stars

As usual I will give nothing of the plot away in my review - plenty of those out there if that's what you are looking for!

I loved this book. The storytelling is first-rate, and there are some fabulous characters. I particularly loved Jenny and Granny, though Jacob, Da and Annette are all well-written too. The story switches between narration by Jenny, Annette and Jacob - and between timelines to some extent. I loved the way Jenny wove stories around her reality, the books she was reading, and her imagined future self.  Granny is a "force of nature" and reminds me of someone I've met in real life - a larger than life character!

At times I found it hard to tell what was real and what was imagined - but that's the mark of a good story in my book!

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC in return for my honest review.

I was really looking forward to reading this book, but just could not get into at all. The narrative didn’t suit me at all. Granny was by far the strongest character, but even she wasn’t enough to carry the book.
Not for me.

Loved this book. A great easy read with lots of twists and lots to think about. 
Makes you think about your own life to and what goes on whats said and what you keep quiet about. 
It follows some very strong issues in society, Autism, family life, Illnesses etc. 
I laughed I cried every emotion came into reafing this book.

I tried so hard to finish this book. I found it so disjointed, unreadable and unenjoyable that I unfortunately stopped reading it - something that I never do.
Sorry.

I really wanted to like this book. The Augustt family sounded an interesting bunch. Dad is out of work, Jenny is old beyond her years, probably from being brought up with Jacob, her autistic young brother. Mum finds life a struggle & when she has a stroke & is hospitalised for a long time Granny moves in to take care of everyone.

Each chapter of the book is written by alternating characters. Although this does serve to show the strange & wonderful world Jonah inhabits & the confusion Annette feels after her stroke, I found this difficult to adjust to. I would have much preferred the story to have been purely from Jenny's point of view. I did enjoy the character of Granny- although I would have hated living with her! 

This was a brave way to write a book. I admire the intent even if I didn't like the book as much as I hoped. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

I find the story difficult to read and several times nearly gave up. The author explores the intricacies of family life – a family bound by love but, each with different and often difficult needs. Granny turns up to help when Mammy suffers an unexpected stroke. The careful balance of their family life is totally exploded  and the resulting turmoil is amusing. The author uses most peoples’ idea of a typical Irish family in which to weave her story.

I really wanted to enjoy this s book,but struggled through to the end. The fact that it was from a few different viewpoints wasn’t an issue, it was more the confusion/repetition of words (illustrating the confusion in the mind of the character) affected the flow of the story (which I did actually enjoy.)  Heavy going.

I found this book difficult to settle into, but it was worth the effort. The writing style moves between the different characters and it is difficult to describe the way this works without revealing to much and creating spoilers.
Suffice to say it deals with autism, parental illness, grief and loss and life from the voice of a stroke patient.
Set in Ireland, it tells its story from the point of view of each character. It is at times poignant, puzzling, hilarious and sad.
Read it, you won't regret it.

This is about the love of home, patience, and communication within an Irish family.

Mammy has a stroke completely out of the blue, so Granny Mae-Anne arrives to take charge.

Da is a quiet man who finds it difficult to say what he means.  Many a story is stored somewhere that he cannot get out.  Mickey cannot get any words out as he sufferers from The Autism.  Jenny writes her thought as they are much easier than speaking them.  How they interact, or not, is the key to this story.

The author Eleanor O'Reilly writes about words and how to express yourself, something that this family struggle with.  It is beautifully written although the story itself was lacking in substance I felt.

I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are all my own and completely unbiased.  My thanks to NetGalley for this opportunity.

Warm and funny this book depicts domestic intricacies at it's best and highlights the importance of communication within families.

This book is all about the August’s, a complex Irish family. They have a strong bond with each other and the book is told from the prospective of Jenny, a young girl, Jacob her autistic brother who is none verbal and her mother who has had a stroke.  Dad is also struggling with unemployment and drinks to much . Step in Grandma! 
This book was not an easy read. Some parts were excellent, other parts were far to descriptive and slow moving . It became hard to concentrate on the narrative at times. Did I enjoy the book- yes I did as the storyline was definitely different however I felt the book needed editing. Many people would give up on it which is a shame .
Many thanks to Netgalley, John Murray Press and Eleanor O Reilly for letting me read this book in exchange for an honest review

I can only rate this book three stars because it was a very confused story to read but there are a lot of positives I feel. The Irish accent is heard very loud and clear and I loved that. The plot  idea is clever and interesting. It’s just that the strands of the story are all complex and end up just too entangled so I couldn’t quite fathom it all out. 
A good first book though and I would read another by this author.

M for Mammy sounded like a truly intriguing read.
It covers some pretty important issues, such as Autism and having a stroke.
I was really quite excited to read it, but sadly I found it very hard to follow because of the disjointed nature of the set-out.
I understand the three viewpoints were important, and the thoughts of an autistic child, Jacob, would be all over the place, and again the way we were put in the mother Annette's shoes, who has suffered a stroke, and all the confusion your mind goes through. Then we had Jenny, a young girl who is battling through trying to understand life, her brother and an absent mother.
Three very different ways of thinking, and the premise was really clever. But I just got confused!
I loved Granny and would have liked to know her more.
I wish I could rate more, but it took me so long to read, because I couldn't engage, therefore my rating is as such.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Two Roads and John Murray Press for an arc, in exchange for an honest review.

This debut novel is very different from the books I usually review but I was intrigued by the description. I am very familiar with the stereotypical ‘Irish Mammy' and found great humour in this. The same can be said with the internal thoughts of Jenny, a young girl trying to handle what life is throwing at her. Whilst this, for me was a very emotional read, it is help greatly by Grandma's shenanigans. The only thing which puts me off from giving it a higher rating than ⭐⭐⭐⭐ is the fractured, confusing flow at the start of the book. It took a lot of perseverance to get my head in the game and knuckle down until things smoothed out. It was worth my efforts, but I wouldn’t class it as a quick read, definitely a novel you need to take your time with. Having said that, given the subject matter that may have been the author intent. My thanks to #Netgalley and @JohnMurrays Press for allowing me to review an advanced copy of #MForMammy.

I just love the format of this book and although l have no knowledge of the extended Irish family l do hope this is true heartwarming and humorous

This was a very complicated Fanily and it’s ups and downs.  It was very funny in places and showed another side to an Irish family.  I enjoyed reading it and had me giggling in places

Jenny and Jacob know they can rely on their mammy for everything. She's always there to look after them and bake them a cake on their birthdays, and mammy is one of the only people to can really communicate with Jacob, who has autism and is non-verbal. But when mammy suffers a stroke, daddy and granny have to step in and things become different for a while.

This book has a lot of good intentions, and the veins of a really good story with compelling characters and nice representation of disability - both mental and physical. I, at first, really liked seeing how the author wrote chapters through the eyes of Jacob, who sees the world completely differently to everyone else. and Annette when she was sick and unable to understand or communicate her thoughts well. Jenny is also a brilliant character with a vivid imagination and it was both heartwarming and heartbreaking watching her try to understand and cope with her changing world. 

The book fell apart for me about 30-40% through. While the story is mostly focused on the family life, I feel it lacked a real plot other than wondering if mammy would ever fully return to health and return home, and there were some odd moments thrown in about Jenny fabricating friendships and people that was never fully explored or explained. I felt that, at times, Jacob and Annette's chapters were too long for the way they were written. While it's fantastic to have the type of representation in a book, there's only so many pages a reader can read of nonsensical sentences. 

Granny was one of the strongest characters in the book, though I had a sweet spot for the dad as well. She was extremely strong, and was a typical Irish granny the way she was able to swoop in and take charge of everything like she'd been there all along. There were some nice moments in this book that I smiled and laughed but by halfway through I did become frustrated by the storytelling and I'd had enough. There were times about 80% through it felt like the story had wrapped up and I couldn't figure out why there was still so much left so I had an unenjoyable experience struggling to finish it.

There are also some small problematic things said in conversations in the books such as casual references to "tinkers" (the Irish traveling community) which could have been left out in my opinion.