The Alternatives is my second book by Caoilinn Hughes, her third is already lined up. What a powerhouse literary talent, honestly - I’m not sure if I missed the early buzz about her work because I know I’m coming to her late but why isn’t literally everyone talking about her???

There’s a particular type of cerebral experience I love with certain books where part of the pleasure is basking in their intellect 😂 and maybe that’s not for everyone, but I just love the fizz of new ideas, of stretching my brain, of thinking about things in a new way. Hughes delivers in spades, but this is also a deeply human story.

It’s about four sisters leading very different lives, who haven’t been altogether for many years. Orphaned young, they’re forced to find their way in the world - Olwen is a geology professor, Maeve is foodie chef, Rhona is a political scientist and Nell is a philosopher teaching at several American universities.

But when Olwen walks out of her life one day and never comes back, the other three come together to find her, and face each other in both reckoning and love.

Through these four flawed, wonderful characters Hughes forces us to look at issues of the world - class, systems of government that have failed us, destruction of the planet, illness. The drama therefore plays out on many levels - at the interior level within each sister, through their relationships with each other, through their chosen professions which look outwards into society and even through the structure of the novel itself, some of which is written specifically as a two-act play.

The dramatic tension this adds is so stylish, and the ideas she grapples with are so profound that I found myself completely in its thrall. This is lit-fic with a capital L slash F, completely in my wheelhouse but sometime to consider before reading. Hughes is incredibly smart, and she writes wholly real characters, who experience anxiety and joy and fear and guilt, who make mistakes, who are selfish and selfless by turn.

I loved this book, and I loved these brilliant women - and the ending? 👀 huge thanks to netgalley for my gifted copy.

Sorry to say I didn’t get on with this one at all, DNF 1/3rd of the way through. It’s not you, it’s me etc. …okay, it’s maybe you a little bit.

We follow four sisters, after the eldest, Olwen, disappears without a trace (though having left a message to say she was okay and leaving of her own accord).

This is a novel of ideas, where all I really wanted was a novel of interesting characters and a plot to engage with. The four sisters felt largely indistinguishable for me, the same person in different circumstances. Each is a doctor in their respective field (geology, cooking, philosophy and citizen’s assemblies), and Hughes utilises the opportunity to reel of screeds of information that just entirely failed to grab me. I think this will work a lot better for a lot of other readers, but I really took against the stylistic choices made - Hughes clearly has things to say and ideas that she wants to get across, but having each character just recite these ideas at length felt like a totally uninspired way to go about this. I’ve sat through my fair share of virtue ethics lectures, and I really think there could have been a more subtle way to engage with these ideas than to make one of the central characters a lecturer, who we observe present a pretty lengthy tutorial to her students.

The prose seemed to be aiming for ‘witty’ but landed somewhere more like ‘grating’, and I can’t say I particularly liked spending time in the company of any of the central or supporting characters.

I think I just caught this novel at the wrong time, and I may well revisit it down the line and find that, with a bit of patience, I can get on board with what Hughes is going for - there are definitely no shortage of really great early reviews. For the time being though I’ll put this one aside, I’m just not sure it’s for me.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the e-ARC.

dnf @ 42%. i want to preface this by saying that i don’t think this book is bad at all, but i did struggle personally with it. the writing style was a bit too much for me at times, although i did love the way the four flattery sisters were fleshed out throughout the narrative. still, it wasn’t enough to keep me engaged, sadly.

This intelligent narrative featuring four Irish sisters challenges the conventional dysfunctional family genre, leaving readers breathless. "The Alternatives" requires a thoughtful examination and the capacity to grapple with emotionally and intellectually challenging philosophical concepts. The formidable sisters, each holding a Ph.D., demand attention.

Meet Olwen, the eldest, an earth scientist deeply concerned about the planet's inevitable demise. Following the untimely death of their parents, she assumed responsibility for her three younger sisters. Rhona, a leading scholar of deliberative democracy and the only mother among them, cares for the adorable one-year-old Leo. Maeve, a celebrity chef, is engrossed in the issue of food scarcity. Nell, an adjunct philosophy professor in the U.S., identifies as bisexual but chooses celibacy.

When Olwen mysteriously disappears, her younger sisters embark on a quest to locate her and succeed swiftly. Olwen's displeasure with the outcome is an understatement, but with four determined and passionate women concerned about global issues, what else can be expected?

Caoilinn Hughes takes a creative leap by weaving a two-act drama into her prose. This multi-page drama allows readers to experience the unfolding events as if they have a front-row seat, maintaining immersion in the story. While introducing a two-act drama is a risk, it pays off by providing an intimate understanding of the four women.

Contemplative, provocative, alternately demanding and compassionate, "The Alternatives" serves as a poignant reminder of the fallacy of control and the constraints of causation. My gratitude to Riverhead Books for granting me early access in exchange for an honest review.

📚The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes

This is Hughes’s third novel but my first time reading her work. The Alternatives is about four Irish sisters flung around the Western world as they’re approaching their middle years and long after the death of their parents. When Olwen, their geologist lecturer sister walks out of her life one night, the others are forced together once again to discover what has happened to her and why she left.

A lot is made by Hughes out of the careers that the sisters have chosen: a geologist, a philosopher on various American campuses; an Instagram chef and a political strategist. The first third of the book is a narrative on how each of the sisters relates to their work and it can drag a little as the level of detail that Hughes goes into over each career seems laboured and tires the concept that how we see the world is delineated through our perspectives. The central mystery isn’t intended to drive the novel - it’s quite like Fleischman is in Trouble in that sense - but instead it’s a musing on sisterhood taken both in the familial sense and also in it’s broader political context. The most engaging moments for me were the environment strands that go through the novel and the question of whether we are bound by community, family or individualism. There’s great intelligence here and it’s a book full of ideas however I think Hughes fails as a fiction writer in this instance in her understanding of how to turn theory into story.

Gorgeous prose, and a compelling story…near perfect until the end which was just deeply unsatisfying. But maybe that was the point? 3.5*

Once upon a time, there were three Irish sisters: Olwen ( a geology lecturer) Rhonda (a political fixer) Maeve (a chef, last book on ‘post Brexit cookery’) and Nell (pansexual free spirit/philosophy lecturer). A family tragedy tore them apart and now another brings them together.

It’s a delicious mix for Hughes’s third novel. Where the casual reader may have trouble is in it’s shifts in style - from broadly comic, to social parody, to an America on the verge of a second bout of Trumpian madness and a thought-experiment on how a united Ireland might actually work. All that cosmic, comic fuel is expended in the last third of the book (which is largely playscript).

So that sleight of hand may leave you short-changed - it’s a quietly comic, structurally daring book which knows it’s audience, but it is as not as thoughtful or uproarious as some recent Irish books. It’s published by Oneworld on 2nd May and I thank them for a preview copy.

The Alternatives has encouraged me to search out each and every book written by Caoilinn Hughes and add it to my TBR because it was flipping outstanding. Utterly wonderful, heart wrenching, heart warming, every emotion under the sun tingling in some way or other

So, literary genius platitudes aside, the story; Four sisters are fragmented following the tragic passing of their parents, their lives and their PHd's taking them in very separate directions. However, when the oldest sister suddenly disappears after becoming increasingly scared of the fate of the earth, the younger sisters travel to Ireland to come together and find their lost sibling. The sisters get caught out and take shelter in an old building whereby they pass the time resolving old conflicts.

The narrative is warm, funy, and authentic. It has a great integrity that celebrates independant womanhood without it being alienating, sisterhood without co-dependancy

A stunning novel,and a highly recommended shining beacon of women's fiction

Thank you to Netgalley for this incredible literary ARC. My review is left voluntarily and the opinions are my own