Rating: 
Summary: Excellent read
Review: If you like your tales to have an ending, a point, and a moral-of-the-story all nicely and neatly printed out, avoid this book. If you are intelligent enough to draw your own conclusions and examine both your own and other people's lives in the clear light of day, you will be delighted and mesmerized by this book.Nuala O'Faolain is a work in progress, and she knows it. She's a product of her generation who has spent her life trying to become something other than what she was raised to be. She shares what her life has been with clarity and humor; she whines and then prods at herself for whining; she presents her own confusion and negatives in a stark and uncompromising manner. She is fully human right out in front of God and everybody, and I can only admire her bravery and hope that someday I'll grow up to be of her character. The women who were born the two generations before mine (I was born in 1960) are the ones who were the advance soldiers in the dirty, muddy war of women's rise to full citizenship of humanity. I admire them, I thank them for their sacrifices, I hope that their struggles were not in vain. O'Faolain's book gives a human dimension to what will someday be three or four lines in a history book. I gulped it down in two sittings, finishing up at 2 am. It's not a book for everyone (and thus only four stars). Wait until you're mature enough to really understand that no one is really as mature as you thought you were when you were 21. Wait 'til you're old enough to have compassion for the humanity in yourself and others. And then you'll be able to "get" this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Charming Nuala.....
Review: Nuala O'Faolain is a columnist with the Irish Times. To a certain extent she followed her journalist father's footsteps, but her climb was a bit more difficult. In addition to her struggles to become a writer, O'Faolain grew up a woman in the impoverished Ireland of the 40's and 50's. Although her childhood in some ways was similar to those of Frank McCourt and Christie Brown, she had the added burden of being female. Like Brown and McCourt, the family struggled with too many mouths to feed and an alcoholic parent. In her adult years, Nuala struggled with her own affliction with the disease of alcoholism. She managed to find recovery from alcoholism and pull her self up from an extremely low place. Her story of the rebuilding of her life is an inspiration to those suffering from alcoholism -- their own or that of a loved one. O'Faolain's writing is not as lyrical as McCourt's nor as colorful as Brown's, but she tells a good tale. Her relating of the day-to-day interaction of her parents, as well as her own relationships with her parents, lovers, friends, and others is honest, compelling and somewhat sad. Her description of Ireland is a million miles from the Hollywood version of the 1940s. I recommend this book to anyone who can't get enough of the "old country."
Rating: 
Summary: We Don't Know: ARE You Somebody?
Review: Looking for insight into relationships and varied experiences of an Irish woman, I was deeply disappointed by the lack of substance of this disjointed memoir. Nuala merely lists her life events rather than explore them in a reflective manner. If the author has learned anything from her experiences, the reader never suspects or appreciates it. It was a real yawn to read Nuala's account of her sexual escapades, drinking, and name-dropping because neither the author nor the reader is able to glean wisdom from these experiences.
Rating:
Summary: Worth Reading
Review: I found this book worth reading. She writes well and has some interesting insights into relationships and life in general. I cannot understand, however, how a woman who has accomplished so much professionally and personally could remain so adolescent in her attitudes about men. She still seems to lack a firm sense of self -- perhaps a hold over from a miserable childhood.
Rating:
Summary: A Curious Book
Review: This is a very odd book. Although there are flashes of brilliance, in characterization and description, the book suffers from a lack of self-awareness on the part of the author--a problem in a memoirist. The author's attempt to account for this at the end by describing her life as made up of a series of discrete events, unrelated to each other, seems like a cop-out. It is her job as author to bring understanding and perspective to her life. At the end, the reader--or this reader--wonders if the author has learned anything at all. Many events in the book seemed as if they would be fascinating if explored in depth; sadly, the author never explores anything in depth. And yet...and yet, what we are given is so interesting that the book is fascinating, however frustrating its faults.
Rating: 
Summary: Are You Somebody
Review: This book has a good start and that's all it has. Considering the author has won a few scholarships and has met many distinguished writers, critics, poets, and scholars, her writing does not meet the expectation built up in a reader's mind. The book consists of a lot of name droppings but with no elaboration on any of the work of the famous people that crossed her path. Maybe it is supposed to be a reflection of the general drunken incoherent state of Ireland and the helplessness of the Irish people. It is very sad indeed. There are many other worthwhile books to read than this one.
Rating: 
Summary: A Rich Gem
Review: I found this book to be such a rich example of the mire from which Irish Catholic women have had to and continue to struggle to extricate themselves. The backward glances of Nuala O'Faolian on how her life was shaped by the Catholic church, the cavalier and cocky way in which her father lived HIS life in spite of the brood back home, and the tremendous impact of having children not by choice on women in Ireland is stunning.
Rating:
Summary: An uncomfortable but rewarding read.
Review: Reading this book at twenty-five made me feel as if an older woman finally told me the truth about life. Why then, I wonder, does nobody seem to like this book, when I consider it among the best I have ever read? Because both these books share that extreme amount of sadness that seems to belong only to the Irish, some might lump them together, but while in McCourt's work his eventual emmigration proves a happy ending to his trials, the sadness in O'Faolain's work doesn't seem to end. This is precisely what makes it a beautiful book. Readers who love the maddeningly innocent perspective of the young McCourt in his biographic Angela's Ashes may find O'Faolain's adult account of her young life cold in comparison. Hers, though, is not simply the story of a difficult upbringing, but of a life made up of difficult decisions made or avoided, and their consequences.
Rating:
Summary: A reader from Dublin...
Review: Why do some of the reviewers below make comparisons with Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes" and then express disappointment that it just isn't as good? Why should they be compared at all? Is it just because they're both Irish? That would be like saying that "Bonfire of the Vanities" is a disappointment after reading "The Grapes of Wrath". Why should they be compared? Just because they are both written by American writers? To read a book dealing with some of the harder things in life is, while difficult, ultimately rewarding and hopeful. To read the reviews below complaining that the book is depressing and therefore bad is in itself depressing. It demonstrates the willingness of so many people to stick their heads in the sand. This is a fascinating read.
Rating:
Summary: Don't bother!
Review: This book came highly recommended to me since I seem to be drawn to Irish authors. Although I kept reading because I was waiting for the book to get better,I finally just gave up and quit! The author seemed to define herself by who she slept with. I was completely disappointed in this book and would not recommend it to anyone!
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