I adored Caroline O'Donoghue's first book and this one lived up to the expectations I had for it. It follows the story of Charlie, who goes to Ireland to uncover a family secret during a difficult time in her own life. I can't wait for future books by this author - a truly fantastic writer. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

Set on a small Irish island off the coast of Kerry, the story seeks to uncover the mystery around the death of all but one schoolchildren at a schoolhouse in the middle of the twentieth century.
The main character, Charlie, has grown up with her father telling her stories of how he was the only one to survive and as a budding filmmaker Charlie creates a documentary film about her father and his life. Upon attending the screening at a film festival in Cork, she’s drawn to the island of Clipim after a fellow director suggests that there might be more to the story than just what her dad has been telling her.

I enjoyed the mystery element of the story, and the atmosphere created by the other characters when Charlie is trying to find out more from the reluctant locals. I didn’t find it ‘side-splittingly funny’ and I although the story was dark I certainly wouldn’t describe it as a ‘blackly-comic thriller’ - I think from this description I may have been expecting something more. There are a few plot points that I felt were left unresolved, and I found Charlie a little hard to sympathise with sometimes.

Personally I think this book was a victim of the blurb trying to make it sound like something it isn’t. As a novel about a scandal - hushed up by the church, ignored by the government - this is a decent book, and one I would recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the copy of the book, in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of this book, I actually had it ‘sitting on the shelf’ for ages because I was unsure how it would be but I needn’t have worried because I loved it. Charlie goes to Ireland to discover more about her past and her families heritage and ends up uncovering a lot more than she expected, it’s funny but deep at the same time!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Failing as a film producer and secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie’s life is stuck in limbo until she takes a trip to uncover to truth behind her dying Irish father’s secretive migration to the UK. This is an amusing tale of friendship and belonging starts with an all female road trip to Clipim, off the West Coast of Ireland, to uncover the truth of a local tragedy and dispel a few Irish myths and stereotypes along the way.

A moving, intelligent, perceptive and well written novel. As an Irish woman who has lived outside Ireland for almost all my life, I connected with Charlie's mixed feelings about her 'home' country, that sense of being both Irish and not. Of feeling that you understand, and are understood, while also being totally 'other'. Never knowing if you can relax and enjoy it or if you're being sucked in by the shenanigans put on for the tourists.

It's also a very good novel about the messiness and ups and downs of old friendships, how people can disappoint you and surprise you, be there for you and let you down, irritate the hell out of you then connect with you in a way no-one else can.

And it's a good story. Plenty of mystery and intrigue and a satisfying conclusion. There's also the start (at least) of a love story.

All in all, a very good read from an author I'll be looking out for in the future.

I highly recommend this for anyone looking for a novel that's thoughtful and a bit different, but still extremely readable.

Very interesting and gripping story which I could not put down. Will look out for more books by this author in the future. Well drawn characters made it very easy to get into the plot line.

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This is the first book I have read by this author. Essentially this is the story of a wannabe film creator/ producer unpicking her father's past including a terrible tragedy on a small Irish Island. It was an incredibly slow burn for me the first two parts of the book seemed to have little to do with anything more than the MCs sexual orientation and jealousy of her supposed BFF. The real grit of the book was in the final part and it was grit, well told, fabulously tense and almost surreal at times. It nearly made up for the tenor of the beginning.

I must say that i find it disconcerting to read reviews and find that the first one is the Author's own which simply blows her own trumpet - surely Her's is far from an objective opinion.

Having said all this i think there is potential for me in this author's work and I would read more by her. It will be interesting to see how they compare

The book was ok and the main reason I probably kept going was because it was an easy read. The storyline was ok not anything complicated and it felt like this kind of plot was being reused alot so I felt I had read this kind of book before.

It is focused on relationships and family and if you like them type of stories then this could be for you.

This book is one of those strange ones: a real page-turner (especially the second half) and explored lots of interesting subjects. I'm just not sure how much I enjoyed it, if I was expecting more from certain aspects.

I thought Charlie - despite, and perhaps because of her messiness - was a great character and her relationship with Laura felt very realistic of one forged between two quite different people at university. I thought her relationship with her family was done well, too. The book also explored aspects of Irish history I didn't know much, if anything, about. It also made me sad that Clipim isn't a real place because now I really want to go.

However, because there was a lot going on, it felt like some aspects of the story didn't really get properly tied up or were finished a little too neatly and quickly. It was always going to be a challenge given the scope of the book and didn't quite hit the mark here for me.

However, the author writes compellingly and there's lots of great observations, characters and scene-setting in there. I'd definitely read another book of hers, I just think she gave herself too much to do with this particular one.

Charlie Regan is in her late thirties & is struggling to find direction. She has always been close to her Irish dad & as he battles with cancer the tale of how he escaped death when his teacher & eighteen classmates died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Along with her close friend they made a film of the event. She graduated with a degree in film but apart from filming herself for her pay to view porn site there is not much action in her career, unlike Laura who is off to LA. When their film is chosen for showing at the Cork Film Festival it is a chance for her to connect with her Irish roots. Being so close, it makes sense to go to her Dad's island & see for herself. However when they get there it is not quite what she expected.

I wanted to read this book because of its setting (my Dad was from Kerry) This was an interesting multi layered story. Although I wanted to shake her at times, I liked Charlie. I must be getting old, but could have done without the sex bits- time to skim read! It was an engaging read with lots of surprises. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

I'm not sure what to say about this book, I didn't love it, yet I didn't hate it, it kept me intrigued enough to stay up late to finish it, a good story set in a beautifully described setting, just didn't particularly warm to any of the charecters

Rating: 2.5

Scenes of a Graphic Nature follows lost 20-something Charlie, who feels like the world (including her best friend, Laura) are passing her by and moving while she is stuck in the same place, due to a disappointing career and the stress of her father's terminal illness. Charlie grew up in England, but has been recording her Irish father’s memories over the course of his illness – and when she gets the chance to visit her ancestral home, she jumps at it. However, Charlie soon starts to discover that maybe her dad wasn’t telling the truth about a tragedy that happened to him when he was a child, and so she starts to dig into it.

I think that by reading that blurb, you might get a sense of what the major problems are with this book. And that is that there is just too much happening. Scenes of a Graphic Nature is a confused that novel that doesn't know whether it wants to tell the story of a lost woman trying to regain some purpose in her life, or the more thriller-esque story of a woman who uncovers a buried conspiracy in a small Irish island. By the end of the book, its told neither of these stories - it sacks them both off at about 75% of the way through to tell an underwhelming romance instead.

I wish that I was being hyperbolic here, but we genuinely are left with so many loose ends that I don't know why any of these weren't questioned by her editor. We never get any closure to her relationships with her parents (quite a large part of the first half of the novel) or her best friend Laura (again, quite a large part of the first half of the novel). She doesn't quite work out what really happened on the island, and is instead just told it in the very last chapter by someone else (in an explanation that doesn't cover why certain people on the island - like Donal and Benjamin Barry - were being so vicious and horrible towards Charlie). She forms a relationship with a woman who, when she is assaulted and almost drowned (!!) by someone on the island, that she doesn't have much sympathy because at least she didn't have an abusive husband.

I think the reason that I am so obviously wound up about this is that Caroline O'Donoghue can write. The writing is engaging, Charlie isn't particularly likeable but she could've had interesting growth, and I flew through the book because of her easy writing style. But unfortunately the plot really let this down for me, and I'm unsure whether I will pick up anything of hers in the future.

An addictive and captivating read of being a woman, of life struggles and still trying to figure rhings out. Parts of this book felt a little slow for me but overall once I got into it I couldn't put it down. This is the first time I have read Caroline O'Donoghue and I am looking forward to more from her.

I found this to be just an ok read. Personally I am a wee bit tired of authors employing cliched writing about small villages/ towns in Ireland with ‘murky’ pasts involving numerous inhabitants of whichever village they’re set in. And I’m not Irish! I found it hard to connect with Charlie, as she is not a particularly sympathetic character, delving into the past without any thought as to any pain she may be causing. Or asking someone if they had been a member of the IRA - unbelievable!
It is well enough written, but not for me.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this book.

📚 BOOK REVIEW 📚 Scene’s Of A Graphic Nature by Caroline O’Donoghue - Publication Date - 1st July 2021

So when I saw the cover, it wasn’t the book description I was expecting. Charlie and her friend Laura go to Ireland for a film festival and Charlie is able to visit the place her father was brought up. This book tells the story of Charlie looking into tales that her father has always told her and some of the locals aren’t best pleased at that.

I absolutely loved this book! Having been to Ireland numerous times, I could relate to the small village feeling described in the book. There was times I giggled, felt sad, felt happy reading this book. A book I felt Charlie was trying to find out things about herself, as well as the stories about Ireland she had been told. Definitely worth a read this book.

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I love the way this book is written, great tone of voice and it’s easy to relate to the main character, Charlie. It also tackles family dynamics, grief, loss and sexuality in a fresh and uplifting way. I recommend this for anyone looking to learn more about Irish culture and history.

This was undoubtedly well-written but it just didn't really grab me. It wasn't the kind of book that I find myself trying to finish in a day because I'm so desperate to know how it ends. But I liked the "voice" of the book and it was an interesting story.

I had mixed feelings about this book, and can't decided how I feel about it having finished it. You knew from the start that her Dad's story wasn't going to be quite how he remembered it but was quite disturbing for it to turn out the way it did. It was well written but was uncomfortable to read.

Scenes of a Graphic Nature follows Charlie, a fledgling filmmaker of dual English and Irish heritage who's been floundering since her father's cancer diagnosis. She's stuck, stagnating in a desolate routine of hospital visits, silent dinners and dead-ends.

So, when an Irish Film Festival contacts her about a nomination screening, she finally has the opportunity to connect with her heritage and find the missing truths in her father's traumatic childhood story. But when she and her drifting best friend, Laura, travel back to Ireland, they uncover a history that wasn't ready to be unearthed.

Although it didn't develop as I'd hoped, there's a lot to love here. Charlie's dry humour, her self-deprecation and untethered thinking, is juxtaposed with descriptions of a dark but beautiful rural Ireland in a way that's charming and familiar, yet uniquely complex. The tense relationship between her Englishness and her desperate desire for Irishness is flawlessly reflected and enhanced by the island's increasing distrust of her as she pries into its painful past.

However, I felt that, as the story escalated and we drew closer to the end, Charlie (and by extension, the plot) just ran out of steam. The harrowing history of the island is placed aside, left unconfronted and, similarly, the conflicts between Charlie and Laura, Charlie and her familial duty, Charlie and her sense of self, seem to be largely shrugged off, exchanged for the salve of a rushed romance. I understood this end, but it's not wholly satisfying and it was a shame to see Charlie again fail to reach for more.

Huge thanks to Virago of Little, Brown Book Group UK and NetGalley for providing a digital copy of the book in exchange for this honest review. O'Donoghue is certainly a skilled writer, I've already grabbed a copy of Promising Young Woman and am very intrigued by her new YA title as well.

After being stuck at home for a few years and grappling with her father’s illness, Charlie Regan decides to go back to Clipim – her ancestral home on an Irish island. Her friend Laura (reluctantly) accompanies her, and together they try to uncover the truth about her father, his town and a tragedy that struck when he was a boy.

The main thing that stayed with me after finishing this book is how realistic the characters were. They were imperfect and awkward and arrogant and jealous and full of doubt, they have done shitty things and did not own up to it. Charlie even supplements her dwindling income by selling her naked pictures. Their dialogues and the main characters’ thoughts reflect this grayness as well, which gives the story even more credibility. People in Clipim also are as you’d expect in a small town - happy to see tourists, but anyone asking too many questions and trying to disrupt their (ignorance) peace is met with suspicion and hostility. We see Charlie as she deals with more and more complications, while facing her feelings about her father’s illness, questioning her talent and her work, navigating a complicated relationship with her mother and being unable to hide a grudge she is holding against her friend.
This book dealt with a range of problems and emotions in an honest way. Nothing was beautified or smoothed, but rather the story was down to earth and messy, realistically portraying life as it is. I really appreciated that and will definitely reach for more books by this author.