A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle

This book is about a girl-Mary-whose Grandma-Emer- is dying and is in hospital. But Mary has met a ghost who is her great grandmother-Tansy- who has a very important message for Emer. Each chapter is from the perspective of four generations of women: a teenager, her mother, her grandmother and her great grandmother. I love the mix of seriousness and comedy that the author beautifully mixes into this book. From the first paragraph I loved Mary and her character. You visit different points in the history of the family including the time Tansy (the great grandmother) dies. The author writes about not only Tansy’s death from her own point of view but also from her daughter’s point of view. I really like this style of writing as it is a natural way of writing that make you feel like you know all the characters like a friend. 

I would recommend this book for girls rather than boys and recommend it for 13 and above. After reading the book I do feel that it was quite slow and if you are more into action books then this is not the kind of book for you. This book is based a lot around the theme of life and death and is slightly fantasy in terms of coming back from the dead but very real in the sense that death is a thing that can happen to anyone.

Review written by Archie White, Year 9.