Martina Devlin

I will say right off the bat that I received this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, and I'm grateful to the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

I will also add that my grasp of Irish history is pretty limited, though that did not impede my enjoyment of the book. The stories were varied enough across genres, and in focus on the women's lives, that it didn't feel dull or repetitive, and I feel like I know more about each of these women, even if I maybe don't have their entire biographies down pat.

My one sort of qualm with the book really (and this may be a cultural thing I'm not in touch with or whatever) but a large number--practically all, if not all--of these stories revolved pretty heavily around these women's relationships to men, especially husbands and brothers. I understand that that may also be a side effect of how these women became famous, but it was odd to read stories of these women and have most of the story really truly be about their brothers or husbands. (We won't touch the Maud Gonne piece because I like totally understand why that part of her life was chosen but also like yikes.)

But overall this is totally approachable and at times really interesting and humanizing set of stories, and I'm glad I know more (or anything!) about these women now.… (més)

In Truth and Dare Devlin selects women of Irish history whose accomplishments have been overshadowed or obscured by their male relatives. Rather than a simple biographical sketch she outlines the skeleton of their works and then gives us a novelised segment from their life. Amazingly this works extremely well - by the end of each life you feel that you know more about one of these important women, more importantly you feel you almost know them. Personally I shall be looking out a biography or two as a direct result of this book. Well done Martina Devlin and thank you.… (més)

I wanted to like this more but I couldn't. women take over, they're often as bad as the men and this pales in comparision to Gate to Women's country, Herland and The Power. The ending was rushed and honestly I felt like it should have been longer or had a sequel.

The several steps that set this world up were missing, no explanation as to why the crops were failing or why fertility was dropping off or how women seized power or why emotions (moes) were carefully controlled, and in several ways it's quite sexist (women are as different from each other as men). While I agree that it's interesting it just didn't quite grasp me as being anything other than a short story writ large, much of the end felt like it was there to add pages rather than really being thought through. I suppose what I'm largely saying is that the author had the potential to do better and didn't.

Lacks something and I'm not sure wider genre reading wouldn't help.… (més)