Fiction & Poetry, Modern & Contemporary Fiction
As You Were

As You Were

Paperback Published on: 01/07/2021
£8.99
20 reviews
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Bookseller Reviews

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As You Were
Brilliant, tragic and funny...
Sinead is a young married mother with a secret which she doesn’t know how to keep anymore. She is in the hospital ward with other patients ; Margaret Rose ... READ MORE
Emine at Bromley

Synopsis

Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2021

Sinead Hynes is a tough, driven, funny young property developer with a terrifying secret.

No-one knows it: not her fellow patients in a failing hospital, and certainly not her family. She has confided only in Google and a shiny magpie.

But she can't go on like this, tirelessly trying to outstrip her past and in mortal fear of her future. Across the ward, Margaret Rose is running her chaotic family from her rose-gold Nokia. In the neighbouring bed, Jane, rarely but piercingly lucid, is searching for a decent bra and for someone to listen. Sinead needs them both.

As You Were is about intimate histories, institutional failures, the kindness of strangers, and the darkly present past of modern Ireland. It is about women's stories and women's struggles. It is about seizing the moment to be free.

Wildly funny, desperately tragic, inventive and irrepressible, As You Were introduces a brilliant voice in Irish fiction with a book that is absolutely of our times.

Publisher information

  • Publisher: Vintage Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781529111514
  • Number of pages: 400
  • Dimensions: 198 x 131 x 24 mm
  • Weight: 282g
  • Languages: English

Customer Reviews

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As You Were
A gem of a book!
I was sent a copy of As You Were by Elaine Feeney to read and review by NetGalley. What a gem of a book! I won’t say that it’s an ‘easy’ read – not the wr... READ MORE
lesleys
As You Were
A lyrical, darkly funny account of the big C
I don’t know what to make of this book. In some ways it’s desperately honest and lyrical and in others it’s blackly funny but then it’s a difficult subject... READ MORE
Jim Sweetman
As You Were
An amazing debut
Siobhan has a terminal illness but she cannot bring herself to tell her husband and children or the other patients of the hospital ward she has recently ar... READ MORE
Sam Whittaker
As You Were
All the feels
I was drawn to this book by the beautiful cover and the blurb drew me in. I really enjoyed how it was written, although it took me a little while to get i... READ MORE
Lisa Porter
As You Were
Not the easiest book to read
I feel quite conflicted by this book. On the one hand it is a very clever stream of consciousness on the part of Sinead, who is in a mixed ward with a vari... READ MORE
Dana Farren
As You Were
Dark yet funny debut
It's dark really really dark but it's also laugh out loud funny in parts; sometimes skipping between the two literally between a couple of paragraphs. Larg... READ MORE
Aine O'Brien
As You Were
Wonderful characters
Sinead is taken by ambulance to hospital, ostensibly with a chest infection, but known only to herself, her doctor and a magpie she has terminal cancer. Sh... READ MORE
Jacqueline Lovstrom
As You Were
Will Play With Your Emotions
3.5stars rounded up to 4 Sinead Hynes is a tough, driven, funny young projperty developer with a terrifying secret. No one knows it: not her fellow patien... READ MORE
Louise Wilson
As You Were
Raw, tragic, heart-breaking story
As You Were by Elaine Feeney is a raw, tragic, heart-breaking story set in a hospital ward in Galway, Ireland. The main character Sinead Hynes has declined... READ MORE
Ciaran McLarnon
As You Were
Great debut
Thank you to Random House UK for an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. As You Were is the debut novel of Elaine Feeney, an I... READ MORE
Daisy Weighill
As You Were
Debut poetic novel - Would you tell your husband you were dying?
As You Were is a book that leaves me in a quandary. I genuinely don't know what I made of it. It challenges, but that challenge is not necessarily comfort... READ MORE
Nellie Tests
As You Were
Original
Elaine Feeney is a brave new voice in fiction and As You Were is a bold and original first novel. In parts its stream of consciousness and other parts narr... READ MORE
Jim
As You Were
An excellent, distinctive debut
Elaine Feeney is an Irish poet and this is her debut novel – one which I believe follows on the key themes and ideas which inspire her poetry, but also one... READ MORE
Graham Fulcher
As You Were
Love, love, loved it!
Beautifully written. Will make you laugh out loud and moments later will have you close to tears. I loved the friendships that developed between the charac... READ MORE
Lisa Coyle
As You Were
Elaine Feeney - As You Were
Sinéad Hynes is in hospital, her family believes it is nothing serious, maybe the property developer just worked too much. But she knows better and has kep... READ MORE
miss.mesmerized
As You Were
Escaping the past to survive the present
Sinead has been rushed to hospital wearing nothing but a strapless Wonderbra. Her husband Alex is doing what he’s always done, looking after their 3 sons i... READ MORE
Judith Jesp
As You Were
Rhythmic
This has an intriguing rhythm to it and the stream of conscious writing feels very fitting for the working mind of someone extremely ill however it does ma... READ MORE
Sarah Goldthorpe
As You Were
Irish Women at the Crossroads
A magpie, viewed as an omen of bad luck, lands on the hood of Sinéad Hynes's car just after she's found out she has terminal cancer. The magpie will be the... READ MORE
Michael Burke