Mairead has her life sorted. ordered. in place. she is the head of a talent agency,happily single, and lives in a perfectly neat flat, priding herself on her neat way she presents herself.
all ordered. as she likes it. lets not mention her work colleagues though please.
then she gets a call from her sister who she is estranged from. she is in hospital and she needs Mairead to look after her daughter, Maireads young niece. this does not fit into Maireads world at all. her and her sister are not alike. but what can she do but accept to look after the young Sunny. this is the start of something for Mairead. and lets just say things are about to be messed up in her life. but maybe thats exactly what she needs.
i loved getting involved in this book and the story line was like sun beams through my life.it didn't mean Mairead changed her whole being, life, beliefs. she didn't suddenly become an earth mother. but she did becomes others things. she did live. she did learn. and i just enjoyed reading every moment of it. she is such a well written character. i could feel her dry wit and humour shaking my own heart at times.
i thought how Mairead steps up mostly against her will was wonderful and really relatable for so many people. and she indeed stepped up. i was rooting for her and how she would cope. i was rooting her Sunny too. and then i was rooting for them together. reading their relationship was great and they had me held tight to my seat from start to finish. i wanted to know where this would go, how they would manage, what they would experience. and i definitely needed to know how it would all tie up. and i thought this ending really fit the story and characters.
this is a heartwarming read full of those really lovely key moments of observations about people and especially parenthood.

"Well, This Is Awkward" is a great novel about family and life choices. Sisters Mairéad and Lenny could not be more different. When Lenny is hospitalised Mairéad has to step up to care for her daughter Sunny. This is a whole new experience for the organised businesswoman, especially as Sunny is a rather challenging child.

This is a thought provoking book with intriguing characters and many humerous moments.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

'Well, This is Awkward,' starts strongly, with boss-lady Mairead taking on her semi-feral niece when her sister has an accident. I enjoyed the scenes set in Mairead's workplace, but once the narrative got to the holiday in Devon I found that its slow pace was already approaching running out of steam. It's interesting that this section was Kryptonite for a few other reviewers, and I found my opinions on the characters souring while they went through every small ritual of the holiday. I'm not sure I'll finish this one.

I’ve been reading Esther Walker’s writing since the Recipe Rifle days so was excited when I heard she had written her first novel. I had high hopes from reading her non-fiction work and from listening to the Times podcast she does with her husband and I wasn’t disappointed. Well, This Is Awkward starts strongly – I’d have been happy to read a whole story set in the passive-aggressive mess of Mairéad’s workplace and I loved the descriptions of her colleagues’ outfits which serve as character portraits/assassinations.
But off to rural Wales Mairéad speeds, to look after her niece Sunny after her estranged sister Lenny has an accident. Of course she called Mairéad rather than their mother Helen, in whom Esther has created another of the great awful mothers in literature: hardly interested in her own children, she dotes on her lodgers, long-term and short. Sunny has been raised off the grid in almost entire social seclusion so it’s no wonder everything seems bewildering to her. Over a summer, Sunny and Mairéad make mistakes and work out how to live together.
The peripheral characters are great, too: friends Cass (provides great moral support but is way off the mark in the date she pushes on Mairéad) and Dodie (who ‘always preferred to be lying down and went back to bed whenever possible’); Helen’s favourite lodger Roxana (I need to be more Roxana: she somehow manages to be relentlessly positive, entirely direct and yet still delightful); and the gynaecologist Dr Childs (if you had ever wondered if a smear test appointment can be played for laughs then yes, yes it can). I really enjoyed Well, This Is Awkward and recommend it if you’re after funny, moving and spot-on contemporary fiction. I see some reviewers have criticised the pacing and story structure but I ate it up.

Thank you Bedford Square Publishers and Netgalley for the eARC of this book!

Well, This is Awkward by Esther Walker is a lighthearted, yet reflective book about the universal theme of parenthood. Mairéad who has carefully curated a life for herself in central London is thrown completely off track when she gets a call to say that she must look after her niece Sunshine.

Mairéad in the beginning is a relatable character for non-parents as she herself is not a parent. She has no desire for children and is happy with her life. This can be relatable for younger readers too who are starting their adult life and have no desire for kids yet.

But, despite this Mairéad steps up when she has to and is thrown into parenthood. She struggles to adapt and this is something I imagine many new parents must experience too. I was rooting for Mairéad and Sunny and their relationship from when they first met right until the end.

Short chapters made this book easy to read. They are greatly appreciated!!

Also as a fellow Mairéad, I ADORED seeing my name not only mentioned in a book but THE MAIN CHARACTER ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨✨.

I would definitely recommend this book if you’re looking for a lighthearted easy read to fill your time.

I felt at the beginning of the book that the characters would be a little too lightweight but that immediately changed when Sonny came on the scene. Delightfully depicted, she felt real, wonderfully complex and so easily pictured. The growing relationship between Sonny and her aunt is heartwarming as both learn how to navigate each other and life. Yes, there are a lot of characters and yes, there are a lot of shifts in the direction of the story but this just provides a realistic setting for a book about life and what life throws at you .

Great read of the growing relationship between Sunny and her aunt Mairèad. It was funny, sad and heart warming. Descriptions of winter in the cabin almost made me reach for a sweater.

Mairead is successful, happy being single with no family responsibilities, until her sister has an accident and she needs to look after her niece, Sunshine . A total transformation of her life ensues, showing a completely different side to her character. Emotional, funny, hard to put down.

I feel really conflicted about this book. There are some parts that are really lovely and the main story is actually very heartwarming. The author’s observations about parenthood are often bang on and I did chuckle out loud at times.

The issue, as others have pointed out, seems to be the pacing. There’s a lot going on that doesn’t quite hang together. The holiday in Devon, which happens and then sort of disappears again and then the random characters who seem to appear out of no where. I’m sure an editor should have done a bit more here to shape the narrative.

Others have mentioned the ending, which I actually didn’t have a problem with. It was nice not to have everything wrapped up in a bow.

A heartwarming and charming novel, it was perhaps a bit more commercial than I was expecting from the author (I’ve loved her writing for years), but I really enjoyed her take on childcare issues and felt that the characters were really well drawn. The end was a bit rushed but overall this was a good read.

I really wanted to like this novel, but it seemed to want to thwart my best intentions. Very little of the effort I put into reading it was rewarded.

My main issue was its pacing. It felt as it the central event should have been the holiday in Devon – which would act as some kind of catalyst to resolve the narrative’s issues but that wasn’t the case. Instead the story moved on to a whole new set of events which seemed equally intractable. I was left thinking “how will all this end?” and really, I don’t think there was a satisfactory answer, it just felt as if the narrative ran out of steam and rolled to a stop in the middle of nowhere. Was this an indication that there might be some kind go sequel? Or had the author lost interest herself in typing up all the loose ends.

The pacing of the novel was further complicated by the fact that there seemed to be too many minor issues going on, and far too many characters introduced which led to me ask – what is this novel all about and why should I care? An editor should have helped to prune out all of this to give the novel a coherent shape instead of abandoning the reader to constantly wonder what may or may not be significant for the rest of the narrative. There was a cognitive load created by this that far outweighed this novel’s importance. It called to mind remembering which general was which in War and Peace with absolutely none of the reward for your perseverance.

Perhaps the most telling aspect of this is that whilst writing this review I have been racking by brain to remember the main character’s name. The fact that I had to wrestle my grey cells to dredge up Mairead and the fuss that was endlessly made about its pronunciation speaks volumes.

Mairéad is living her best life, head of a influencer talent agency which she sold to a US group for a pile of money, single, her own immaculate flat, impeccable hair, make-up and clothes.

Then she receives a call, her estranged elder sister has been hospitalised and there is no-one to look after her eleven year old daughter Sunny. As her daughter's name suggests, Mairéad's sister is a bit of a hippy, living off-grid, eschewing modern medicines as poison, protesting pretty much everything, and home-schooling Sunny. Mairéad's mother Helen is more interested in her lodgers than either of her daughters or her granddaughter, plus to Mairéad's knowledge she hasn't left her house in years.

So reluctantly, Mairéad agrees to take charge of her niece. Sunny still sucks her thumb, hates being touched, rarely wears shoes, and frankly smells. Her arrival completely throws Mairéad through a loop (hoop?) and necessitates huge changes to her life.

I really enjoyed this, although I thought Mairéad was incredibly dense at some points, it was heart warming and life affirming without the misogynist undertones that successful single women are all really deeply unhappy and would feel happier if they became full-time mothers which I see/feel in many books/films where a career woman suddenly acquires a child. My only gripe(s) was that the end felt a little rushed - there was an issue, it got solved in a few pages, there were some seeds of new beginnings and BOOM the end. I could have read on and on and on.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Well, This Is Awkward by Esther Walker is a warm, funny and charming novel.

Mairéad is a 40-something single woman living in London and working for a large social media agency. Her life is disrupted when her sister Lennie has to spend time in hospital and needs Mairéad to look after Sunny, her young teenage daughter.

I really enjoyed the development of the relationship between Sunny and Mairéad and the plot is well paced with twists and turns to keep you interested in what happens to them.

If you enjoy Esther Walker’s writing, you are sure to enjoy this novel and I highly recommend it.

A great read about Mairead stepping in to look after her niece Sunny after her mum is admitted to hospital following a pig accident!
This book was so lovely, fantastic and realistic dialogue. Not everything got spelled out for you in a way that I despise authors doing. A story about reimagining your life and adapting to change.
I loved the summer spent in Devon with Dibs and his family.
Just a really really ace book.