I really enjoyed Big Girl Small Town and have found myself thinking about the book, Majella and the fictional yet so realistic town she lives in.

One endorsement I read described the book as beautifully ‘bawdy’, and there’s definitely plenty of fairly explicit humour and content. This didn’t detract from the heartbreaking depiction of Majella’s life; the extent to which she’s frozen and trapped in a small rural, post-Troubles border town. It was also described as Derry Girls meets The Milkman which was a helpful comparison, but while I love Derry Girls I really didn’t enjoy the Milkman, so was pleasant surprised by how much I enjoyed this.

I did feel it ended a little abruptly and overall there were several narrative threads which weren’t finished. The writing and characterisation drove the book and kept me reading, but the plot could have been stronger.

Received this book for free via NetGalley and thank goodness for that as I would have been really disappointed if I'd actuall parted with any money to read this.

It's very rare that I start a book and give up but this book so nearly achieved that for me.

It meandered, repeated and whilst an Irish small town life (or any small town life) might be exactly that, it doesn't make for a good read to keep telling the reader all about it.

The most excitement in the whole book was when the lead character buys a new duvet!!

What I found so frustrating is there were a couple of totally unexplored potential plot lines that could have made this significantly more interesting.

Unfortunately I can't recommend this for any reasons.

I can only describe this Book as Derry Girls meets Eleanor Oliphant. I absolutely love Derry Girls and felt Eleanor Oliphant was one of the worst books I have ever read. This book gave me a few laughs and I did keep reading to the end but there really is no story with any conclusion and just walks you through the day to day life of an autistic girl (who doesn't know she is autistic) who works in a chip shop and has an alcoholic mother.

There is a brutal murder in the book which you may think will eventually be an explosive part of the plot but you will be sadly disappointed. There is also the missing father who has links to the IRA story line which, again, could be an exciting plot and leads to nothing. So, to reiterate, there really is no exciting or gripping plot to be enjoyed.

The only other comment I have on this book is it really did make me crave a chippy!

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review, I will not be posting my review elsewhere in this case.

How I enjoyed the journey with Jelly and the crew at the a Salt and Battered in Aghybogey, I demand a sequel. I loved the characters and the slow pace of life in the Irish town but underneath all sorts of plots were bubbling, Each piece of the reading of the story was a revelation and I wanted Jelly to buy the shop for her own, with the inheritance from her murdered Granny. There was the intrigue of her father and his brother, I kept hoping something would be revealed on those lines. There was so much going on we could have a series of books to clear it all up. I will be sad not to be joining them all in the chipper tonight. Great read, 5+ star book.

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.

Majella is the lead character in Big Girl, Small Town. She longs to escape and in tragedy finds her chance to do that. Majella knows a lot about the people in her town and their goings on as they pass threw the chippy where she works. This is the vocal point of the novel, the people that come in and out. Marjella does not know she is autistic and so as the reader, are faced with her open free voice which does not shy away from the crudest of observations about her neibgours and customers. The dry wit and her take on things give the book an interesting voice and at times can be difficult to contend with. Match that with the book being written in her native Irish dialect, it can sometimes be a little alienating. I wanted to like Marella more and follow her on even the smallest of journeys however it never really got going. Once the scene had been set and we got to know her more, the book seemed to run out of ideas and let me feeling a bit flat. It never needed a huge twist or plot turning point but its lack of energy or empathy towards every character made it a difficult book to finish. I was not the biggest fan of Elanor Oliphant which has had a lot of comparrisons with this novel so perhaps this reviewer is missing the point, but it never reached me for this novel and despite a promising begening never went anywhere from there.