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They said I was a drug addict. I found that hard to come to terms with – I was a middle-class, convent-educated girl whose drug use was strictly recreational. And surely drug addicts were thinner? It was true that I took drugs, but what no one seemed to understand was that my drug use wasn’t any different from their having a drink or two on a Friday night after work. They might have a few vodkas and tonic and let off a bit of steam. I had a couple of lines of cocaine and did likewise. As I said to my father and my sister and my sister’s husband and eventually the therapists of the Cloisters, ‘If cocaine was sold in liquid form, in a bottle, would you complain about me taking it? Well, would you? No, I bet you wouldn’t! ’ I'm not usually someone to try and guess how a story will end and find it much more enjoyable to just follow wherever the author leads me, but if you're not like me and you're looking for surprising twists and turns, then maybe this is not for you. Make them practise yelling, ‘SURPRISE!’… My sisters, but especially Imelda and Philomena, won’t want to, and some of the cousins are right bitches too, but tell them there’ll be no goody bag for them if they don’t.” I loved this book. Marian Keyes is real and raw and knows what she’s talking about, having walked the talk. It makes me feel the same way as when journalists write crime fiction, I know I am in safe hands. Having gotten sober herself in rehab, her writing has flourished since. She's only agreed to her incarceration because she's heard that rehab is wall-to-wall jacuzzis, spa treatments and celebrities going cold turkey - plus it's about time she had a holiday.
Joyful. Keyes' clever way with words and extraordinary wit. People stared at me as I laughed to myself'- C.L. Taylor BBC One - imagine..., 2022, Marian Keyes: My (not so) Perfect Life, Meeting 'Mr Right' ". BBC . Retrieved 8 February 2022. If there’s a core theme in Again, Rachel, it’s that of forgiveness: forgiveness of oneself for human failings. Forgiveness for loved ones who don’t always behave in ways we might wish. Forgiveness for the adversities – seemingly perverse in their cruelty – that life sometimes throws at us. Again, Rachel has all of Keyes’s trademark wit, humour and whip-smart dialogue, but it’s also a novel teeming with compassion and redemption.
During her appearance on Desert Island Discs in March 2017, Keyes told the host that "[by] conditioning women to think that what they find empowering or valuable is worth less than what men consider to be worthwhile, women are prevented from reaching for parity and the gender gap in power and money between men and women is kept in the favour of men". [11] At the start of the book, we are in denial as to the extent of her drug addiction problems and just think her family are being ott. Then gradually as it dawns on Rachel just how far she has fallen, our eyes are opened too and her addiction is exposed in all its ugliness. Marian Keyes has described her own battle with alcoholism and you just know she is drawing on her own experiences here. The clinic and group therapy classes have a ring of truth about them and for all the hilarity there are lines that dart straight to your heart and make you think about your own addictions.
Marian Keyes is a brilliant writer. No one is better at making terrifically funny jokes while telling such important, perceptive and agonizing stories of the heart. She is a genius'- Sali Hughes Thinking more carefully, this book really was something. There has to be something special about a book that has touched me so deeply. So, this shall be the 5-star book not because it made me laugh so hard, but because it had made me cry so hard. It wasn't because it was particularly sad, but maybe because I feel as though I'd been with Rachel through her worst.
Short stories to keep
She's been living it up in New York City, spending her nights talking her way into glamorous parties before heading home in the early hours to her hot boyfriend, Luke. Like a magnet, Luke drew lots of me to the surface, so that I told him things I'd never tell a man that I fancied. She’ll pay a couple of months ’ rent to Brigit so that Brigit has breathing space to find someone new.’
Marian Keyes is a phenomenon. The multi-million copy, internationally bestselling author of some of the most widely loved, genre-defying novels of the past thirty years – such as Rachel’s Holiday, Anybody Out There and Grown Ups – has millions of fans around the world. They are irresistibly drawn by her warmth and wit, fearless honesty, relatable characters and relationships, and sheer storytelling magic. Not only has Marian inspired and entertained countless readers, but also the next generation of writers too.But then Brigit stumbled across a piece of paper that I’d been attempting to write on just before I fell asleep. It was just the usual maudlin, mawkish, self-indulgent poetry-type rubbish I often wrote when I was under the influence. Stuff that seemed really profound at the time, where I thought I’d discovered the secret of the universe, but that caused me to blush with shame when I read it in the cold light of day, the bits that I could read, that is. Rachel Walsh and Marian Keyes go together like sisters. Like friends. Of course they do – Marian wrote Rachel, invented her. But it's more than that. So much more. In Rachel, Marian invites us into a very intimate place, a place we suspect is deep inside Marian. Anyone who's come across Marian will know that if you join her there, you're in for belly laughs and gut punches in equal measure. Marian lets us understand Rachel and all her clamorous demons, most especially her powerful shame in this phenomenally transformative book. I love Marian's writing, because I remember it. I remember it because it's the truth. With big laughs. Marian Keyes is contemporary fiction. Damn her to hell. Marian Keyes has a feeling for character, an ear for dialogue and a proficiency for plotting that should make her the envy of most Booker listees. Her love and understanding of people and the foibles, follies and frailties that make them human are clear in the spaces between every line she writes. With each and every book, she proves that it's possible to be profound while being hilariously funny.
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