This book really isn’t what I expected. When I first started to read it I enjoyed it and it made me laugh, as the main character Majella has a long list of things she doesn’t like about life. The more I read the book the more monotonous it became. However it wasn’t until I came to write this review and reread the synopsis. That I realised the main character Majella is autistic which changed my viewpoint of this book a little bit. This explains the monotony of each day as autistic people like routine and don’t cope well with a change to their routine.

The most interesting thing in the book for me was learning a bit more about what it was like growing up in a small town in Northern Ireland near the boarder to Southern Ireland during the troubles.


Majella lives with her alcoholic mother in a small town in Northern Ireland. Everyday has the same routine which is basically getting up late each day, wearing the same sort of clothes. Making sure that her alcoholic mother hasn’t mistakenly taken to many Pain killers with the alcohol or hurt herself. Then she gets herself ready for work and walks to the fish and chip shop called “Salt & Battered” Where she has worked for a number of years.

Majella has a long list of things she doesn’t like and these things have numerous subcategories and they are:

1: Small Talk, bullshit and gossip
2: Physical Contact
3: Noise
4: Bright Lights
5: Scented Stuff
6: Cunter (Who is her the owner of the Salt & Battered and is really called Hunter)
7: Sweating
8: Jokes
9: Makeup
10: Fashion

9.1: Makeup – Nail Polish: is to heavy – weighing fingers down – looks utterly unnatural when coloured e.g. red, orange, black giving the people the appearance of wearing beetle carapaces on their fingers.

- Difficult to apply, requiring practice, time and skill.
- Prone to smudging during drying period.
- Impermanent: Cracks & flakes sometimes in hours, but always within days.
- Requires chemicals during the production process and for removal.
- Complete wast of money.


One day things drastically change for Majella, as her grandmother is murdered. Which puts Majella right in the spotlight and everyone in the town is wanting to know her business. Majella prefers not to be noticed she’d rather people just ignored her.

This seems to make Marjella’s mother worse. As she hasn’t ever gotten over her husband disappearing when Majella was 11 years old. He was know to have dealings with the IRA and they think that’s the reason for him disappearing all those years ago. Now however with his mother being murdered people in the know have put out feelers hoping that this may make him come back. Which it doesn’t, so the only conclusion is that he is dead.

Majella, her mother and her fathers sister are all summoned to be present at the reading of her grandmothers will. This shocks them all as they didn’t even know that she’d made a will. Majella’s mum and aunt were given some money and Majella was left the farming land, the house which was in dire need of being restored just to make it habital along with the caravan. Her grandmother lived in the caravan with the house being unfit to live in. Majella’s father had started to do some repairs on the house but he lost interest when his brother was blown up by a faulty bomb he was trying to plant.

Majella’s aunt isn’t happy with only being left some money. Everyone in the town thought she would get the land and the house, seeing that her brothers were both gone. Majella knew that this would make her aunt hate her even more now , but it isn’t Majella’s fault.

On Sunday nights she always goes to the pub and has a few pint. On this particular Sunday though near to the end of the night the person who is farming her families land bought her a drink and started to try and make a deal with her about him buying the land. Majella gets angry at this and tells him off, as he’s been in the pub all night and now that she’s well oiled he comes over trying to make a deal to purchase the land.

As she’s about to leave the pub one of the other regulars asks her if she fancies anything to eat. So they go to the local Chinese and get some food. Once they have their food with them, they both get in to the guys van, and he drunkenly drives them to a deserted car park. They eat their food and then they climb into the back of the van and have sex. Majella loves sex it makes her feel good and happy. She sleeps with a few of the men in the town every now and then.

When Majella gets home later that night, she get into bed and it’s like a light has been switched on, as life has become much much clearer to her. It isn’t explained in the book how and what becomes clearer to Majalla to me that is a bit of a mystery. Even though I finally realising that the main character was autistic, it hasn’t change my view point of the book enough to warrant it any more stars. I can still only give it 2 stars.

Although not much happens Big Girl, Small Town I enjoyed getting to know Majella and all of her small quirks. The story reminded me of Eleanor Oliphant but with a little less going on. All in all, an enjoyable book if you want something easy to read.

This book follows Majella who lives in a border town in Northern Ireland. She works in a chip shop. This book is a slice-of-life kind of book. You follow Majella day in day out and see the world through her eyes. she likes things a certain way. It's quite a repeptitive book but somehow that didn't bother me. Not a huge amount happens, just a few bits and bobs, thought it does start with her grandmother being attacked and killed by someone. We never find out who but that isn't really the focus of the story.
The descriptions of the fish and chips she eats often made my mouth water and crave fish and chips nicely doused in vinegar. Funny and tragic in parts, the story gave you a good idea of life in small town Northern Ireland and how the Troubles affected the people living in these towns.

Thanks to John Murray Press and Netgalley for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Majella O'Brien lives in a small town, repeating what seems like the same day. Something she accepts as a comfort, due to her upbringing, and also the curse of living in a small town. Then, everything changes when her grandma dies and she is thrown into the town gossip mill and unwanted attention.

Overall, I enjoyed the writing. The focus on the religious divide is present, as suites to the setting and it's influence. A feel of 1970s divided Ireland is strongly set in this book, highlighting its relevance still.

In lots of places it's quite dark and focuses on mental health. Gallen slowly reveals the past/present issues that Majella faces, and her coping mechanisms. I can see why there have been comparisons to certain books. However, Big Girl, Small Town is a book of its own, and we shouldn't just say it's a version of this and that. That's how people get certain expectations of how the story is going to unfold, not appreciating it for what it actually discusses.

I almost DNFd this book at about 30% through. I was waiting for something to happen and it took a while. I am so glad I persevered and thoroughly enjoyed the latter half of the book. Thanks to the publisher and netgally for an ARC egalley.

Majella lives a quiet life with her alcoholic mother. She works in the local chippy from Monday to Saturday. She wears to small overalls and eats fish and chips every day.
She doesn't bother about what goes on in her village although it is during the Troubles and her da has disappeared.

Then her grandmother is murdered and life changes for Majella.

Twenty-seven year old Majella lives in a small close knit border town in Northern Ireland; she lives with her ma and works in the local chip shop. Her life is all about routine, at home and at work; she knows what time to expect her regulars and she likes her life like that. She was perfectly happy working Monday to Saturday evenings in the local chip shop and her Sunday evenings in the local pub.

We follow Majella over the course of one week in November; her Grandmother was recently tragically found dead and the police are investigating making Majella and her mother more of a talking point than she'd like to be.

This is very character driven and I did find myself wondering about 50% of the way through whether anything was really going to 'happen'; there are a lot of unanswered questions left at the end of this so if you prefer a fast paced plot with twists and turns then this probably isn't for you but I think it says a lot that I got half way through before I realised that. Majella is a funny and interesting character to listen to; a lot of this is written in dialect which I enjoyed and really made the characters come to life in my head.

Although this book revolves around Majella, Michelle Gallen hasn't just built a good main character and narrator she's created an entire community of interwoven people and backstories which we get snippets of through Majella's trails of thought or her gossipy conversations with Marty behind the chip shop counter.

There's plenty of room for a follow up here and I would love to explore these characters more and find out some of the answers, that have been ever so slightly frustratingly left open.

An interesting concept but I found it hard to empathise with the main character
Some interesting sub plots which bring out the best & worst of other people
I was a bit disappointed with the ending but it does lead on very clearly for the need for a follow up book

Majella makes an excellent protagonist, supported by a cast of diverse and endearing characters in Aghybogey. Much of the book is hilarious but there is also a lot of sadness and some serious themes under the surface. I found it authentic, refreshing and compulsive reading. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to hearing more from Michelle Gallen.

I was really excited to try this book after seeing what a love / hate relationship many readers have had with it. Unfortunately, this one wasn't for me and I'm rendering a DNF @25%. For the record, there were aspects to this story that I really liked. I really enjoyed Majella, and I even liked the heavy accent / dialogue that the book was written in. My problem came in the fact that I didn't feel that anything was actually happening in this book, and it just seemed to me that there was no definitive plot. This story just seemed to be an examination of Majella's life and for this reason, I started to lose interest in the story at about 20%. I carried on reading and once nothing of any interest happened in the further chapters that I read, I decided to give up.

Thanks for the opportunity to read this book and review it. Based on the fact that I didn't finish this book, I won't be formally reviewing it on Goodreads or on social media.

This book is a gem. It's not about a dramatic, twisty plot or a big reveal, but instead a quiet, subtle exploration of a particular moment in history and a specific socio-economic group. I couldn't put it down and found sinking into Majella's world completely addictive and strangely compelling. The pace and language work to build an incredible atmosphere and sense of place. I love coming across new voices in fiction and getting to see the world from a different point of view, and this book did exactly that. Loved it loved it loved it.

Initially I found this novel hard to get into. However after the first few pages I was quite amused by the day to day life of Majella. A little crude perhaps, but definitely a good read for fans of the Derry Girls. My thanks to Net Galley, the author and the publisher for my advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Big Girl Small Town is the story of Majella, 28 and stuck in a border town in Northern Ireland shortly after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, so somewhere around 1998/1999. The book is narrated by Majella, who is somewhere on the autism spectrum (she is not aware of this), and is written in Derry dialect, which was wonderful.

We read about Majella and the day to day happenings in her life. She works in a chipper every night. Her mother is an alcoholic. Her father disappeared some years earlier. She likes and dislikes a lot of things. In fact, every chapter is headed with something that Majella likes or dislikes. However, there is no storyline as such and no plot to speak of. Her grandmother has just been murdered, but that story doesn't evolve into anything solid. The book is a succession of town characters coming in and out of the chipper where Majella works, all quirky and interesting in their own way.

I did find reading in the dialect really fun, however, it is quite crude in parts, unnecessarily so IMHO. Derry Girls meets Eleanor Oliphant is how I would describe this book. The dry Irish wit had me giggling and there were quite a few phrases I was familiar with. The characters were very well described and I could picture each one. I wasn't the biggest fan of Eleanor Oliphant but I liked Majella as a character and was rooting for her all the way through the book. However, a steady plotline in either the background or as a lead for the book would have, in my opinion, given it more structure and a sense of closure. 3/5*

Thank you for the opportunity to read Big Girl Small Town in exchange for my honest opinion.

Majella lives in a small town in Northern Ireland on the border with Ireland not long after the Good Friday agreement was signed. She lives with an alcoholic mother and works in the local chip shop.

To be honest, that's it.

As a portrait of a post-troubles Northern Irish town, struggling to find a new normality in a world that has completely changed, filled with characters where everyone knows everyone else and they speak what has become their own little dialect of English, isolated from the outside world and with few people harbouring thoughts of leaving and finding a place in a larger world, stuck in ruts without even knowing it, then this is brilliant. The language used is of the region, leading one to attempt to imagine the accent as you read (thank you, Derry Girls) otherwise it makes less sense. Some words remain unfamiliar even if the odd structure and word use becomes more so, one does come away with the feeling that you've been translating as you go.

What this isn't is a proper story. There's no plot. At all. Instead there is this examination of Majella's life, and as such, the headers of each chapter, a list of what Majella doesn't like, becomes dull and cliched.

Majella herself is a strange one, or wan if you've read the book. From the start it is obvious she is living with some kind of mental health issue, This, if you read the blurb but that's the only place it is referenced, is autism, but unless you are intimately familiar with all the forms and exhibitions of autism in people, you wouldn't know. She's just damaged in some way, and we then have to work out of she's just like that or if events in her life have caused it. She has faced trauma and in some characters that would be enough. But it does seem to have worsened as she grew up. She held down a close friendship in her teens that she is no longer able or willing to attempt. One desperate plea doesn't make a lot of difference to this viewpoint.

She's also quite sad, not emotionally, but she's so set in her ways, so afraid of change, she is stunted and limited. She eats only fish and chips and toast through the whole book until the very end when she manages to break out and have a Chinese takeaway. She's over-eight but on such a diet she'd also be far more unwell, probably diabetic even if she weren't to know it. Yet she's robust and that doesn't marry with her horrendously unhealthy lifestyle.

There is a huge missed opportunity to add plot to the novel in the murder of her granny. We know from the start she's been murdered, then we hear about the wake and the reading of the will, but we never get close to finding out why or who killed her. And it makes little difference to Majella - it seems to be a inconvenience rather than something that effects her. And the departure of her father - we are led to believe he's dead, her granny is certain for some reason that again is not explored, and we never come close to getting to the bottom of this whole, traumatic event in Majella's life.

The other off-putting aspect of this novel is the level of detail in some of the personal descriptions. For instance, the scene where Majella has her first smear test - if Ms Gallen out to shock? To educate? This novel will not appeal to anyone too young to have had one, and so those reading know what they are, and what therefore is to be gained by black and white description with no actual purpose? What is she adding to the novel by using such gory detail and presenting it as how it is for everyone. It isn't. So why present it otherwise? Shock value? Is Ms Gallen also attempting to shock us with Majella's frequent reference to her breasts and touching herself? How does that make us learn more about Majella? I'm' no prude but I couldn't see the gain for the reader.

One note on the language, I know I read a proof copy, but the inconsistencies in the use of language surely should have been sorted out in the initial writing - the word 'tea' is spelled three different ways and used inconsistently - tea, tae and tay, the latter two to invoke the accent, but sometimes 'tae' is used in direct speech then the same character will start to say 'tea'.. If you are going to invoke accent through spelling, you either do it or don't, swapping between the two just shows the writer was showing off one day of writing and forgot the next. And be consistent with spelling.

So, as a portrait of a town trying to loosen itself from the shackles of the past, it is great. But the addition of a self-obsessed, mentally ill young women, Ms Gallen is just going a bit too far, and the lack of plot is such a waste of potential. Nothing happens, no one changes, no one has an epiphany that makes a difference, no one has an epiphany that they turn their back on to the safety of the familiar. Frustrating.

This book was really enjoyable and made all the better by the dialectal style and the vivid characters.
Majella's struggles throughout the stories are really relatable, and I found myself empathising with her and drawn in by her daily routine. I've just seen that Nicola Coughlan (of Derry Girls) has just finished recording the audio book version, and I honestly couldn't think of anyone better to give voice to Majella's journey.

I'm not sure whether I enjoyed this book or not - I don't think it is one that will stay with me. but I was compelled to finish it,

The book is narrated by Majella O'Neill who lives on the border in Northern Ireland in the aftermath of The Troubles. There are so many fascinating plot points which could have been expanded on including the brutal murder of her grandmother, the disappearance of her father, her uncle Bobby (a potential paedophile) being killed when his own bomb exploded, and her inheritance.

However, none of these angles are explored or resolved i, and instead the book is a snapshot into Majella's day to day life with headings based on a list of things she likes and doesn't like. The book goes in depth into her shifts at the chip shop and her customers, her periods, and how she cares for her alcoholic mother.

The book is well written and the character development is great and I genuinely wanted to know what happened to her, her grandmother and her father. But sadly there was no real plot and one gets the impression that all of these are being resolved whilst we the readers are not looking..

I have given it 4 stars for the writing style, and the quirky approach to grammar, spelling and dialects.

I wasn't sure about this book for the first few pages but once I got into the style of writing and the characters,I really enjoyed it.It's set in a small town in Northern Ireland,where Majella,the main character, works in the local chippy,and lives with her hopeless,alcoholic mother.It doesn't sound like a promising plot,but the strength lies in the parade of characters who come in to the shop every night and the interaction between them.The book goes between earthy humour and genuine sadness,and follows the events of one week.
Things change for Majella following an unexpected death in the family but you're left wondering what she is going to do as a result of the change in her circumstances so I hope there will be a sequel.
I got to admire her for the way she deals with all that life throws at her,and look forward to finding out what happens next.

I’m sorry to say that I did not enjoy this book in any sense. Being written in the vernacular meant the narrative did not flow for me, and the extreme bad language added nothing to it’s appeal. The promised humour did not materialise for me, and I do have a good sense of humour normally . I just found this story gross and depressing, with some descriptions I truly wish I had not read, as I can’t unread them. I did not finish this book, which is rare for me. I could not recommend this to anyone else sadly.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this title.

I saw this described as ‘Milkman meets Derry Girls’ – and I LOVE Derry Girls, so requested an ARC from Netgalley!

Here’s the blurb:

” *Stuff Majella knows*
-God doesn’t punish men with baldness for wearing ladies’ knickers
-Banana-flavoured condoms taste the same as nutrition shakes
-Not everyone gets a volley of gunshots over their grave as they are being lowered into the ground

*Stuff Majella doesn’t know*
-That she is autistic
-Why her ma drinks
-Where her da is

Other people find Majella odd. She keeps herself to herself, she doesn’t like gossip and she isn’t interested in knowing her neighbours’ business. But suddenly everyone in the small town in Northern Ireland where she grew up wants to know all about hers.
Since her da disappeared during the Troubles, Majella has tried to live a quiet life with her alcoholic mother. She works in the local chip shop (Monday-Saturday, Sunday off), wears the same clothes every day (overalls, too small), has the same dinner each night (fish and chips, nuked in the microwave) and binge watches Dallas (the best show ever aired on TV) from the safety of her single bed. She has no friends and no boyfriend and Majella thinks things are better that way.

But Majella’s safe and predictable existence is shattered when her grandmother dies and as much as she wants things to go back to normal, Majella comes to realise that maybe there is more to life. And it might just be that from tragedy comes Majella’s one chance at escape.”

Now, I’ve never read Milkman – so my comparison would be it’s a cross between ‘Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine’ and Derry Girls.

The book is all written from Majella’s point of view – and each chapter is headed by an item off her list of things she likes and dislikes. That means the ‘chapters’ are seemingly random in length.

I really enjoyed the way the spoken elements were written in a Northern Irish dialect. I have friends and family who live in the Belfast area – and I could actually hear them talking at times!

I kept waiting for something exciting to happen – and something potentially very exciting does happen – but it does not change the book. It is the minutiae of Majella’s life, day in day out. Be it at home with her drunken mother or at the chipper with her colleagues and various customers.

Some of it is mildly entertaining, some of it is a bit gross (I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book which has a number of descriptions of changing tampons), some of it is a bit sad – but a lot of it is boring and repetitive.

This is not Eleanor and this is not Derry Girls. Majella does not have the appeal of Eleanor and there is nowhere near the humour of Derry Girls (emphasised by watching the Great British Festive Bake Off with some of the cast in during the period of reading the book!)

I persevered – as I don’t like to be beaten by a book, and I really thought it might suddenly get better – but I wouldn’t recommend you bother to be honest.

It’s not often I give a bad book review – I love all genres of books – but this was not one for me.

This novel is a work of art, cleverly structured and subtly presented. Majella is somewhere on the autistic spectrum and finds daily interaction with others a chore. She has learned responses to the chip shop banter by rote which has the effect of making her shifts there repetitive and therefore something she can cope with. Her life is one of routine for her but most aspects of it strike the reader (well, me anyway) as unusual. But then life in a small town right on the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland would be unusual and I would guess not at all like the situation in cities like Belfast or Londonderry I have read about in other novels coming out of Northern Ireland recently. Majella picks up information obliquely and that is the way it is presented to us - what happened to her uncle and father, who might have attacked her granny, what to make of her granny’s will - the story unfolds in tiny increments and is all the more effective for that.

A terrific achievement, and I was surprised to think this is the author’s first novel. I loved everything about it - the dialogue, the mass of minor characters, Majella’s unique take on events, and especially the name of the chip shop - and wish it the success it deserves. I’ll certainly be recommending it as widely as I can.