560. Girl With Green Eyes

Girl With Green Eyes

Edna O'Brien
1962
Around 215 pages

I'm not entirely sure why I don't click with Edna O'Brien. Typically, I enjoy this genre, but I never quite connect with her female characters, who are Catholic, naive, and make terrible decisions about men. So I found this novel to be a bit of a bore.

Kate Brady is fresh out of convent school and working at a grocery shop in Dublin. She rooms with her childhood friend Baba, who is much freer than Kate. Kate meets the much older married author, Eugene, and falls for him, despite her Catholic-induced sexual repression.

This was a pretty predictable story if you have an ounce of world experience. Kate doesn't, so she doesn't have the easiest time in this novel. I didn't find any of the characters particularly charming, and O'Brien's writing isn't engaging to me. Definitely skippable.

RATING: **---

Interesting Facts:

First published with the title The Lonely Girl.

O'Brien met and married, against her parents' wishes, the Irish writer Ernest Gébler, and the couple moved to London. Initially believing he deserved credit for helping her become an accomplished writer, Gébler came to believe he was the author of O'Brien's books. Sigh.

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