NEWS & HIGHLIGHTS

Sentimental in the City ★★★★★ The times

I tuned in to Dolly Alderton and Caroline O’Donoghue’s Sex and the City mini-series Sentimental in the City (a spin-off from O’Donoghue’s podcast Sentimental Garbage) with a vague sense of social awkwardness. I have never watched Sex and the City and I am a man. Would I feel like the lone, interloping male tagging along unwanted and disorientated at the back of a girls’ night out?

Well maybe I didn’t belong, but I did love it. Sex and the City (analysed one series per episode) is the jumping-off point for a series of fascinating conversations about life, people, relationships, love, sex and being in your thirties. And Alderton and O’Donoghue are exceptionally perceptive (and funny) about all those things.

Scenes of a Graphic Nature: Witty take on the messy nature of friendship

True to its title, there are indeed several scenes of a graphic nature in this book, but they are so astutely observed and honestly described that they never jar or cause the reader to cringe. O’Donoghue’s prose is witty and original and she has a real gift for description. This is a gorgeous exploration of the messy and fragile nature of friendship and all the many forms of love, as well as of the primal need we all have to belong.

Irish author’s six-figure deal: ‘My luck has turned around so quickly I have whiplash’

Caroline O’Donoghue has landed a six-figure, two-book deal for her YA debut novel which has been described as “Stranger Things meets Sabrina The Teenage Witch”.

Podcast of the week: Sentimental Garbage

On Sentimental Garbage, the latest podcast by author and journalist Caroline O’Donoghue, she has long conversations with other female writers about that most-maligned genre, chick-lit. O’Donoghue’s thesis is that because of sexism and marketing, the stories women write that are branded under chick-lit are lost to mainstream readers and undervalued critically because of their focus on female experience.

‘Brilliantly sharp and timely tale

Promising Young Women may seem, at the outset, like a story we've heard before; ambitious girl takes on the city and her married, older boss. Yet O'Donoghue lets a gripping tale eventually unfurl. Clem is much more than a pervy old boss, while Jane's mental and physical well-being takes a shocking turn. Make no mistake, there is a brilliant sharpness underneath what may seem like a glossy surface.