REVIEW: The Green Road by Anne Enright

I read about The Green Road on Library Thing, and thought it sounded like the perfect book for me. I love Irish family sagas. Then I picked the book up from the library, and saw it had been longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize. I avoided it for a while then because I assumed that meant unlikable characters with an unresolved ending. It was only a looming library due date with a holds list three people deep that kept me from renewing this book that got me to give it a try.

An old picture from a trip to Western Ireland I took in college. The trip that started my love for Irish family sagas. 

You know what? The characters were pretty unlikable, and the ending was a bit unresolved, but I still loved this book. Despite their total selfishness, the characters read true, and Enright's writing was beautiful and efficient. She used just the right words. She let you know what was going on in the way F. Scott Fitzgerald told you all about Jordan Baker just by the way she drove.

Don't be scared off by this book's success. The Green Road is exactly the Irish family drama you were hoping for.