I finished Breakdown and had an inner cheer - finally a recently published book with a woman of middle age as the main character. Hurrah! I cannot tell you how refreshing this was to read. A book that features an actual grown-up having a life crisis instead of a 20-something. I found it hauntingly relatable, I've felt what she felt and I could empathise with every single choice. There's very little verbalising between characters, the book is written as more of an internal monologue which I adored. You really get to know the inner workings of our nameless protagonist. I zipped through it and nodded viciously along with what our MC was thinking. She might not be very likeable at certain points but she certainly has reasons behind every act. This is a startling portrait of how women over 40 are over looked and disregarded. Of how women are expected to just accept their lot in life. I was deeply moved by Cathy Sweeney's writing and before I'd even finished Breakdown, I'd recommended it to friends.

I read it in a day; engulfed it, actually. It's a brutally honest account of a middle class woman breaking out of the shackles of her life, shattering taboos, leaving routine at the doorstep. Every detail is achingly real; the way she describes the mundanity of the things/people she sees and places she visits on the journey away from her family (as well as her home life) made me unsettled in my own skin: YES, I thought, things ARE like this, and for some people it can be a torturous prison. This is metaphorical and literal escapism, and I'm utterly dazzled. Best debut I've read since "A Terrible Kindness"

It is extremely rare for me to be disappointed or let down by an Irish writer, and Cathy Sweeney has continued this for me! I flew through this, it’s a very quick pacy read with the perfect balance of plot and character study. You will really agonise for our unnamed narrator, a wife and mother who one day decides to leave her quotidian middle-class Dublin life in search of something intangible, yet vital to her survival. Everyone, but particularly women, will find something relatable in her intimate thoughts that we are given access to. A very impressive début and another brilliant new Irish writer to keep an eye on.

Thank you to the publishers for this early review copy. I really enjoyed this read and I could certainly see myself gifting copies to many friends. Loved the writing, I was simply hooked into the story from the very first page and could have continued reading long after the last page. Put simply whatever Cathy writes next could I be at the front of the queue please? Absolutely recommended!

I loved the premise of this - a mother leaves home one day as if to go to work, but instead just drives, and gets on a train, then ferry, gets a lift from a stranger, and continues travelling. An unplanned roadtrip becomes an unplanned escape from her comfortable life in the suburbs of Dublin with her picture-perfect family. It was so freeing to read a book with a female narrator who makes totally unconventional choices as a wife and a mother. She wasn’t always likeable, but why should female characters always be liked? It was just really fun to read, I’d definitely recommend it.