Rating: 
Summary: We paid to be her therapist.
Review: Our book club read this book after hearing that it was so highly recommended. Though the author got her literary act together in the second half of the book and there were a scattering of beautifully written passages, we were not impressed. Here's our review: The idiosyncratic, disjointed ramblings of a self-absorbed woman looking to the public for the attention and love she never received from her parents. Tedious to read and lacking in any insight on the part of the author.
Rating: 
Summary: A fascinating view of Irish women of a certain age
Review: I was quite moved by this book, by O'Faolain's honesty about her sexual development, failed relationships, and her struggle with the life of her parents and their effect on her and her siblings. It helped me understand present-day Ireland better, and also some of the religious strife - for example, the fact that as a college student she was "shocked" to discover other religions beyond catholicism that had similar tenets. It's hard for us to imagine being so sheltered from the rest of the world.I admired her courage in examining why she is alone and how she feels about it. The postscript was particularly interesting. When I finished this book I started reading it over.
Rating: 
Summary: Name dropping spinster tugs the heartstrings.
Review: How to reveal onself without revealing much at all? The author answers this question in this "accidental" autobiography. She gives the reader glimpses of personal despair, rage at patriarchy, lesbianism, British and Irish literary life, and her life's struggles. But these glimpses, these morsels, are but a smorgasbord of appetizers. Perhaps they are all a conservative Irish reading public can stomach .But a multi-cultural readership steeped in therapeutic confessionals hungers for more. The nearly ceaseless listing of encounters with the great, near-great, and obscure in the world of letters detracted from the emotional power of the memoir. Most moving was the fearless description of loneliness in the final chapter. Without it and the epilogue, the author and her world are only seen timidly shrouded in Irish Mist, alcohol pun fully intended.
Rating:
Summary: Completely disappointing
Review: For all her laundry lists of books she has read and famous people with whom she has hobnobbed, the author's own writing is sadly lacking in insight. I might have enjoyed reading her newspaper columns much more, but none were included here. I found the tale of her youth and schooling vague, disjointed, and scattered. A professional critic might use words like "undeveloped" and "immature." Sorry, I just can't understand all the hype about this book. Readers would do better to return to Joyce's "Dubliners."
Rating:
Summary: I was disappointed with this book.
Review: Memoir is my preferred reading choice and by the comments of reviewers on the cover: " a rich, fierce memoir; seering unsentimental book; funny plainspoken, heartfelt; and you don't want this book to end," I eagerly looked forward to something special. However, I was never engaged by the author's voice. It seemed flat, frequentlyalluding to bits and pieces of suggested experiences which were not fleshed out before the author was onto something else equally elusive.. Another theme was all the famous poets and writers who had as if by magic taken her under their wings and helped her with her writing. I didn't get any sense of her inner struggles or search for identity or anything that I could identify with. Her main struggles seemed to be with men, but again, it was presented as a vague struggle with various men at various times. Indeed, I was astounded at all the lovers she managed to attract. A reviewer, "Books Ireland" promised "sexual frankness that is startlingly honest..." Granted, I could not finish the book because I was so disengaged, but I didn't find anything that wasn't stale news about male female relationships.
Rating: 
Summary: Book Information and Reviews
Review: "...O'Faolain writes well, often beautifully, and her candor and honesty and ultimately her compassion, set this memoir well apart" --The Washington Post "When you read Nuala O'Faolain's "Are You Somebody," you'll wish Ireland was giving out some kind of a Booker or Pulitzer prize. . . . You don't want the book to end." --Frank McCourt, author of "Angela's Ashes" Are You Somebody is a moving and fascinating portrait of both Ireland and one of its most popular and respected commentators. This gem of honesty and insight had its first life as the introduction to a collection of Nuala O'Faolain's Irish Times columns that became a number-one bestseller in Ireland. It now stands alone. Ireland has fallen in love with this memoir of an Irish woman of letters, and now this country will too. "Likely to become a classic of Irish autobiography." --Colm Tóibín, Times Literary Supplement ""Are You Somebody" is an extraordinary, powerful memoir. It is beautifully written, with an honesty that is both sensitive and stark." --Roddy Doyle "A remarkable memoir, poignant, truthful, and imparting that quiet wisdom which suffering brings." --Edna O'Brien Nuala O'Faolain has been a writer, a university professor, a television producer, and, most recently, a columnist for the Irish Times. She lives in Dublin.
Rating: 
Summary: Mixed feelings about this book
Review: Ms. O'Faolain is, beyond a doubt, a gifted writer. Unfortunately, this book isn't the best showcase of her talents. She seems to view herself as a witness to her own life; her academic accomplishments are ascribed to various "patrons" who helped her get scholarships rather than hard work on her own part. We know all about the men she slept with and the pubs she visited, but she never gets around to naming all of her siblings. And while she might feel that witnessing W.H. Auden eating an egg at Oxford gives her some startling insight into his character, the meaning escapes me. It certainly says nothing about her. For all her talk of freeing herself from the restrictive life that Irish women were expected to live until recently, Nuala O'Faolain comes across as an extraordinarily passive woman.
Rating:
Summary: Lyrical, beautiful, writing
Review: Her story is a fascinating one; a new glimpse at a woman coming of age personally and professionally in the man's world of Ireland. What makes the book extraordinary is the level of writing - it is beautiful, touching - even harsh in a world-weary manner. Enjoyed it immensely - and a rare event for me - turned down pages to return to - for the simple joy of the well turned phrase.
Rating:
Summary: inspiring, intelligent and thoughtful
Review: This memoir of a middle-age woman offers inspiration, intelligent self-reflections and humor as the author addresses life's realities, the joyful, the difficult, the humorous. She provides herself as a glorious model for mid-life women. It is a well written treat.
Rating:
Summary: Nuala O Faolain has told it just as it was.
Review: I have just finished reading Nuala O Faolains book Are you somebody. As an Irish woman growing up in Ireland some twenty years after the author I found many of her observations to be painfully accurate. While my generation did not experience the full brunt of tyranny endured by our mothers, we most certainly did not escape unscathed. We witnessed their battles against all the odds for even a token gesture of recognition. Though not fully relating to their struggles we most certainly absorbed their sense of helplessness. I was particularily moved by the account of an incident which occured in her young sisters life. This young child was beaten and shamed in the classroom by her teacher "an embittered woman". The incident was not an isolated one inflicted upon one ostracized individual. It was a common daily occurance inflicted upon all of us,at random, by that demonic woman. Compassion, sympathy, kindness or decency had no place in that classroom. The sad r! eality was that we lived in an " Ireland that allowed such things to happen" Shame on those ( and they were many) who perpetuated such behaviour. Nuala O Faolin has told it just as it was. I applaud her.
| 
