Light-hearted, often farcical, multigenerational Irish family drama - an escapist read.
Good Eggs is a light-hearted family drama centred around the multigenerational Gogarty family in the coastal town of Dún Laoghaire in Dublin. Featuring the individual perspectives of three generations throughout various family dramas the story provides a humorous glimpse into one very big-hearted Irish family. Millie Gogarty is a widowed eighty-three-year-old with a penchant for petty theft who lives alone and still drives a car. Her fifty-year-old beleaguered stepson, Kevin, is an out of work journalist who has been left behind by the digital age and is now a stay at home father to four children and, much to his dismay, the owner of a seven seater car to carry his entire clan. The most trying of Kevin’s brood is sixteen-year-old Aideen, a perpetually stroppy teen whose twin sister is everything she isn’t, including pretty and popular, and after one fight too many Aideen is about to be shipped off to boarding school.
When Millie finds herself at the Garda station on account of her latest bout of pilfering at the local store she is forced to call her exasperated son and provide him with yet more ammunition to put her in a nursing home. An agreement is put in place that sees Kevin employ a home aide to keep an eye on his irrepressible mother and Millie is reluctantly forced to agree. Enter American Sylvia Phenning who bowls Millie over with her attentiveness and concern and the lonely octogenarian is surprised to find she enjoys the companionship. Even better for Aideen, who is at her Gran’s on a weekend home from boarding school, is Sylvia’s handsome and sweet-natured nephew, Sean. But whilst Kevin’s head is turned by the attentions of a younger woman and Aideen is being led astray by the school rebel, Sylvia is busy with plans of her own and Millie is soon hot on her heels..
The family crisis that is set in motion following Millie’s arrest and with the arrival of Sylvia is all too obvious from early on and I found disaffected Aideen’s efforts to settle in at her new boarding school to be the most engaging aspect of the story. The pacing throughout is uneven with the first three-quarters of the story proceeding leisurely (to say the least) and the final, and most action-packed quarter, taking place at breakneck speed and skimping on detail. The humour itself is patchy and tends towards farcical with a complete absence of subtlety, making the comedy element all too obvious to hit the mark for me. So many of the capers are played up to the point where they become preposterous that at times I felt that all that was missing was a soundtrack of canned laughter! The book was an undemanding read and I found awkward teenager, Aideen, the most relatable and credible character. Millie is more caricature and Kevin is a stereotypical man having a midlife crisis and given his marital strife it was a pity that his wife of twenty years hardly featured in the novel.
An escapist read that is easy to follow with some typically Irish dialogue but I would not read a sequel or any further adventures with the Gogartys.
When Millie finds herself at the Garda station on account of her latest bout of pilfering at the local store she is forced to call her exasperated son and provide him with yet more ammunition to put her in a nursing home. An agreement is put in place that sees Kevin employ a home aide to keep an eye on his irrepressible mother and Millie is reluctantly forced to agree. Enter American Sylvia Phenning who bowls Millie over with her attentiveness and concern and the lonely octogenarian is surprised to find she enjoys the companionship. Even better for Aideen, who is at her Gran’s on a weekend home from boarding school, is Sylvia’s handsome and sweet-natured nephew, Sean. But whilst Kevin’s head is turned by the attentions of a younger woman and Aideen is being led astray by the school rebel, Sylvia is busy with plans of her own and Millie is soon hot on her heels..
The family crisis that is set in motion following Millie’s arrest and with the arrival of Sylvia is all too obvious from early on and I found disaffected Aideen’s efforts to settle in at her new boarding school to be the most engaging aspect of the story. The pacing throughout is uneven with the first three-quarters of the story proceeding leisurely (to say the least) and the final, and most action-packed quarter, taking place at breakneck speed and skimping on detail. The humour itself is patchy and tends towards farcical with a complete absence of subtlety, making the comedy element all too obvious to hit the mark for me. So many of the capers are played up to the point where they become preposterous that at times I felt that all that was missing was a soundtrack of canned laughter! The book was an undemanding read and I found awkward teenager, Aideen, the most relatable and credible character. Millie is more caricature and Kevin is a stereotypical man having a midlife crisis and given his marital strife it was a pity that his wife of twenty years hardly featured in the novel.
An escapist read that is easy to follow with some typically Irish dialogue but I would not read a sequel or any further adventures with the Gogartys.