Review: Rockadoon Shore by Rory Gleeson

Posted February 6, 2017 by Charlotte in Reviews / 0 Comments

Rockadoon Shore by Rory Gleeson
Review: Rockadoon Shore by Rory GleesonRockadoon Shore by Rory Gleeson
Published by John Murray on January 12th 2017
Genres: Contemporary, Fiction
Pages: 304
Format: E-Arc
Source: Netgalley
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Cath is worried about her friends. DanDan is struggling with the death of his ex, Lucy is drinking way too much and Steph has become closed off. A weekend away is just what they need. They travel out to Rockadoon Lodge, to the wilds in the west of Ireland.
But the weekend doesn't go to plan. JJ is more concerned with getting high than spending time with them, while Merc is humiliated and seeks revenge. And when their elderly neighbour Malachy arrives on their doorstep in the dead of night with a gun in his hands, nothing will be the same again for any of them . . .
Honest, moving and human, Rockadoon Shore is a novel about friendship and youth, about missed opportunities and lost love, and about the realities of growing up and growing old in modern-day Ireland. Highly energetic and tensely humorous, it heralds a new and exciting voice in contemporary Irish fiction.

I really wanted to like Rockadoon Shore. A teenage weekend away that doesn’t go to plan. This weekend is an opportunity to become closer as friends and find out who they truly are.  Instead we end up with a bunch of self-pitying, selfish and unlikable people. Which is a super great way to spend an afternoon reading about…

Each character takes turns telling a chapter. Each moaning about something. And each refusing to have any morals and just going for what they want. Also everything is  in the third person, there is no direct speech or speech marks. Making for a confusing time every page. Which to be honest really frustrated me. I just felt that I couldn’t get into this book and really get to know the characters.

And it felt like reading a script. Impossible to know who was talking and using up too much concentration. And after a while I felt that I really didn’t care who it was. Pathetic and whiny. These teenagers don’t know what they want in life and who they want to be. None of them really face up to their problems or accept that there they have issues. Lucy, the alcoholic in this story, keeps drinking despite being told multiple times to stop. Merc hates being humiliated and seeks revenge in a brutal fashion. Only JJ seems keen to change and he has no personality.

I just couldn’t care less. And waiting for something to happen was horrendously slow. And when things, finally happened it was such a let down, that I don’t know why I bothered to read Rockadoon Shore.

This may appeal to many people, but if you are looking for a bit of escapism and an intriguing story then Rockadoon Shore by Rory Gleeson certainty is not the book for you.

 

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