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Breakdown
One winter morning, in contemporary Dublin, a middle-class woman wakes up next to her husband in her suburban home, and without conscious purpose, walks out the front door to begin a journey that ultimately leads to profound transfiguration.
She travels first by car and then train to Rosslare, from where she takes a ferry to Fishguard in Wales. Along the way, she finds herself in service stations, shopping centres, train stations, ferry terminals; recalling her youth, earlier fantasies of suicide and reminiscing about those people who have come in and out of her life.
Finally, 48 hours later, alone and isolated in a cottage in Wales, in a strange and eerie landscape, the woman reaches her nadir.
Breakdown is a novel about the rage and reckoning of a middle aged, educated woman who has lived her life in accordance with the expectations of society.
She travels first by car and then train to Rosslare, from where she takes a ferry to Fishguard in Wales. Along the way, she finds herself in service stations, shopping centres, train stations, ferry terminals; recalling her youth, earlier fantasies of suicide and reminiscing about those people who have come in and out of her life.
Finally, 48 hours later, alone and isolated in a cottage in Wales, in a strange and eerie landscape, the woman reaches her nadir.
Breakdown is a novel about the rage and reckoning of a middle aged, educated woman who has lived her life in accordance with the expectations of society.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published August 3, 2023
About the author
Cathy Sweeney
3 books36 followersCathy Sweeney is a writer living in Dublin. Her short fiction has been published in The Stinging Fly, The Dublin Review, Egress, Winter Papers, Banshee, The Tangerine and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Her debut short story collection Modern Times was published by The Stinging Fly and Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2020.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 158 reviews
January 11, 2024
“The strategies I adopted over the years to live in that house in the suburbs were pretty good. Most of the time they worked. But the problem is a matter of physics. Energy can neither be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another. It is the same with feelings.”
On a seemingly standard winter morning, a middle-aged, middle-class woman wakes up in her home in the Dublin suburbs. She gets ready and leaves the house as usual but on this particular day she decides she’s had enough of her life and without any plan or forethought, goes in search of another.
Leaving behind her husband and teenage children she first drives, then gets a train, a boat, a bus, and another car and takes us with her on what appears to be an emotional break down, but may actually just be this woman finding herself again.
These chapters are interspersed with flashes forward to the future where our protagonist reflects on this bewildering time in her life.
To borrow a line from Doireann Ní Ghríofa; this is a feminist text.
The more time we spend with this woman and her thoughts, the more obvious it becomes that her life has been moulded around the suffocating expectations of society. She’s not always “likeable” (a word I hate as it’s so often used as a stick to beat women with) but that’s kind of the point; she doesn’t want your approval and always feels fully realised as a character, even when her actions seem bizarre.
Even though I felt an underlying sense of dread for most of this book, I couldn’t put it down. The writing is exquisite and reminded me of why I love reading so much; the chance to be fully absorbed in the life of someone else.
Highly recommend; out on the 18th of January.
With many thanks to @hachetteireland for the early copy, my opinions are my own, as always. #Gifted #PRCopy
On a seemingly standard winter morning, a middle-aged, middle-class woman wakes up in her home in the Dublin suburbs. She gets ready and leaves the house as usual but on this particular day she decides she’s had enough of her life and without any plan or forethought, goes in search of another.
Leaving behind her husband and teenage children she first drives, then gets a train, a boat, a bus, and another car and takes us with her on what appears to be an emotional break down, but may actually just be this woman finding herself again.
These chapters are interspersed with flashes forward to the future where our protagonist reflects on this bewildering time in her life.
To borrow a line from Doireann Ní Ghríofa; this is a feminist text.
The more time we spend with this woman and her thoughts, the more obvious it becomes that her life has been moulded around the suffocating expectations of society. She’s not always “likeable” (a word I hate as it’s so often used as a stick to beat women with) but that’s kind of the point; she doesn’t want your approval and always feels fully realised as a character, even when her actions seem bizarre.
Even though I felt an underlying sense of dread for most of this book, I couldn’t put it down. The writing is exquisite and reminded me of why I love reading so much; the chance to be fully absorbed in the life of someone else.
Highly recommend; out on the 18th of January.
With many thanks to @hachetteireland for the early copy, my opinions are my own, as always. #Gifted #PRCopy
February 28, 2024
2.5
I'm afraid this book didn't do a thing for me. The lead character is thoroughly unlikeable. She certainly doesn't appear to have had a breakdown. She appears to be bored with her current life, dislikes the children that she brought up to be the young people they've turned into, doesn't love her husband or her job so squirrels away money for a year then walks out of her life.
The narration was fine, but the narrator can't do accents - the Welsh and American weren't good.
This book was just dull with a phenomenal amount of lists thrown in. The lists were generally what the poor put upon woman didn't really want to do or was tired of doing or were things her children needed. One list was an actual shopping list!? At one point when she's in her cottage with nothing to do and no one else to please she actually says she feels, what was it, oh yeah freedom. Golly what an immense surprise. Freedom from all responsibilities and all you have to do is walk away without a decent explanation to anyone. Who knew? (If you hear something then it's me grinding my teeth together).
The last thing that wound me up was that noone (apart from one person in Wales) saud please or thankyou throughout the book. Some people object to bad language, I object to bad manners.
I read this as a book club book of the month. I don't think I'll be searching out more Cathy Sweeney any time soon.
I'm afraid this book didn't do a thing for me. The lead character is thoroughly unlikeable. She certainly doesn't appear to have had a breakdown. She appears to be bored with her current life, dislikes the children that she brought up to be the young people they've turned into, doesn't love her husband or her job so squirrels away money for a year then walks out of her life.
The narration was fine, but the narrator can't do accents - the Welsh and American weren't good.
This book was just dull with a phenomenal amount of lists thrown in. The lists were generally what the poor put upon woman didn't really want to do or was tired of doing or were things her children needed. One list was an actual shopping list!? At one point when she's in her cottage with nothing to do and no one else to please she actually says she feels, what was it, oh yeah freedom. Golly what an immense surprise. Freedom from all responsibilities and all you have to do is walk away without a decent explanation to anyone. Who knew? (If you hear something then it's me grinding my teeth together).
The last thing that wound me up was that noone (apart from one person in Wales) saud please or thankyou throughout the book. Some people object to bad language, I object to bad manners.
I read this as a book club book of the month. I don't think I'll be searching out more Cathy Sweeney any time soon.
February 22, 2024
This book should have been called “Middle Class White Woman Problems: A Novel”.
Truly insufferable main character.
Truly insufferable main character.
January 24, 2024
'Modern Times' was a wonderfully weird short story collection so I was really looking forward to reading Cathy Sweeney's debut novel. Luckily, I wasn't disappointed. This was relatable, angry, feminist, and very well written. A great read!
Thank you Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Orion for the ARC.
Thank you Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Orion for the ARC.
April 10, 2024
I was on board for the first half, but then it started to lose me.
Yes it looked like her life sucked - her partner and kids didn't really seem to care about her, and she seemed unfulfilled in all other parts of her life. But then in the second half this felt less sympathetic and more "mothers are so strong and powerful they are the pinnacle of society but also were forced into their choices by society so should just refuse to comply" which like yes but the way this was done just made the protagonist feel so unlikeable you weren't really rooting for her liberation.
She starts to kind of hint at failings in her relationship with her mother, that she then passed on to her daughter, but then also always seems to be criticising her daughter and young women and also projects her self-hatred onto the other married women in her life? And like will just bang any man who moves? And I'm fine with a character being unlikeable but it really felt like the messaging was that we were meant to be on her side because society has done so much wrong by mothers...
Idk I just think the protagonist couldn't just blame everything on society and her husband felt like such a caracature of the "weaponised incompetence husband" just to serve as a reason for us to side with her...like yes there's pressure to conform but also if you really wanted to be an artist and follow your dreams or whatever do that but I think you also have to recognise that you made choices to be where you are now and walking out on your family and leaving your kids with no contact or explanation (and yes they're BARELY adults and this is how she justifies it) is kind of a scummy thing to do no matter how much you tell yourself you're aware of how scummy it is while sitting in your little cottage thinking about free you are now
the more i think about this the more angry i get cause this was not like 'slay girl have a breakdown' it was like oh shes actually a bad person and we're still meant to support her cause shes a woman and a mother
AND ANOTHER THING i just remembered how at points she would try to connect it to like 'whats the point the planet is dying thats a breakdown too' and it just felt so like fake 12 year old deep...like pick a lane are you discontent with your life cause you're a martyr or is it because you have climate anxiety and thats why you wanna get away from capitalism and the city? and it was so underexplored too it felt like it was being thrown in just to have some bigger message
Yes it looked like her life sucked - her partner and kids didn't really seem to care about her, and she seemed unfulfilled in all other parts of her life. But then in the second half this felt less sympathetic and more "mothers are so strong and powerful they are the pinnacle of society but also were forced into their choices by society so should just refuse to comply" which like yes but the way this was done just made the protagonist feel so unlikeable you weren't really rooting for her liberation.
She starts to kind of hint at failings in her relationship with her mother, that she then passed on to her daughter, but then also always seems to be criticising her daughter and young women and also projects her self-hatred onto the other married women in her life? And like will just bang any man who moves? And I'm fine with a character being unlikeable but it really felt like the messaging was that we were meant to be on her side because society has done so much wrong by mothers...
Idk I just think the protagonist couldn't just blame everything on society and her husband felt like such a caracature of the "weaponised incompetence husband" just to serve as a reason for us to side with her...like yes there's pressure to conform but also if you really wanted to be an artist and follow your dreams or whatever do that but I think you also have to recognise that you made choices to be where you are now and walking out on your family and leaving your kids with no contact or explanation (and yes they're BARELY adults and this is how she justifies it) is kind of a scummy thing to do no matter how much you tell yourself you're aware of how scummy it is while sitting in your little cottage thinking about free you are now
the more i think about this the more angry i get cause this was not like 'slay girl have a breakdown' it was like oh shes actually a bad person and we're still meant to support her cause shes a woman and a mother
AND ANOTHER THING i just remembered how at points she would try to connect it to like 'whats the point the planet is dying thats a breakdown too' and it just felt so like fake 12 year old deep...like pick a lane are you discontent with your life cause you're a martyr or is it because you have climate anxiety and thats why you wanna get away from capitalism and the city? and it was so underexplored too it felt like it was being thrown in just to have some bigger message
January 20, 2024
Have you ever thought about running away?
From your life, your friends, your family, your responsibilities?
(or the responsibilities placed on you, by a demanding seemingly never ever satisfied society *cough cough*)
How far (or would) you go, before turning back?
Breakdown not only poses this alluring question, but actually follows through with it.
Well, through our protagonist, who decides “enough is enough”, and up-sticks and leaves it all behind.
From Irelands lively Dublin, via car, train, bus and ferry, to a crumbling rural Welsh cottage, our protagonist (as she is of course, yet another unnamed woman, only ever referred to/identified by her status as a; mother, wife, daughter) charts the past, present, and not so distant future, in order to explore and understand just how long these feelings of unfulfilled longing and desperation to escape the humdrum of daily domestic life, have been quietly bubbling away.
Yes folks, this is a woman who’s boiled over.
Breakdown is (will) certainly be a decisive read. Not only because she is a mother, who is unashamedly brutally in her honesty (and subsequent ((somewhat selfish, or at the very least, overly dramatic)) actions), but because she is a woman (mother, wife, daughter) who dares to go there.
Complex and conflicting, this is a whole new genre of “self discovery” (or destruction, depending on your interpretation)
3.5 stars
PS - thank you to the publishers for sending me a copy to read and review!
May 23, 2024
Really enjoyed this book of a middle aged woman who has a breakdown and moves from Ireland to wales and rediscovers things
January 23, 2024
Quite a bleak but powerful read on identity, ageing and a bit about capitalism. I found it a bit slow in places with moments of absolute brilliance. For readers of Rachel Cusk, Deborah Levy, Heather Havrilesky, maybe even Han Kang. We should all probably read and digest this, especially young couples just starting out on the journey.
January 20, 2024
notttt my cup of tea ! Objectively well-written but miserable and way too pessimistic
February 26, 2024
Breakdown, the sophomore novel from Irish writer Cathy Sweeney, is a provocative piece of literary fiction that lures you in very quickly and has an urgency that makes it hard to put down.
On a cold, nondescript day in November, a middle class woman walks out the door of her comfortable middle class home, not thinking about where she might be headed but knowing that she has had enough. Enough of her job as an art teacher, enough of the mundanity of household chores, enough of her sedentary marriage, enough of getting things “done”, ticking things off a list.
She drives to her home town of Arklow, then takes a train, a ferry, a car, a bus and another car before reaching her final destination, freeing herself of the shackles of her former life, as she sees it.
I think at the heart of this novel is a sense of loneliness and disconnection that many people when they read the book will be able to relate to. The narrator speaks of the world breaking down around her, everyone and everything breaking down, and what she is seeking is something primal to shake her out of her numbness to life, society’s grinding expectations of her and what appears to be a profound depression.
It’s a pretty stark novel with an unlikeable narrator but it’s so well-written and her character is so well-drawn and so real, it’s impossible to look away. The only aspect I didn’t love was the moving back and forth in time - revealing the ending so early on took some of the tension out of the novel.
Years ago, people in Ireland spoke of women, usually in midlife who “suffered from their nerves”. What was usually meant but never spoken about was clinical depression. Part of you wants to cheer her on, the other part of you is yelling “stop” 🙉. Breakdown is to menopausal women what Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy is to new mothers. An unflinching read that makes for a great book club pick. Recommended. 4-4.5/5⭐️
On a cold, nondescript day in November, a middle class woman walks out the door of her comfortable middle class home, not thinking about where she might be headed but knowing that she has had enough. Enough of her job as an art teacher, enough of the mundanity of household chores, enough of her sedentary marriage, enough of getting things “done”, ticking things off a list.
She drives to her home town of Arklow, then takes a train, a ferry, a car, a bus and another car before reaching her final destination, freeing herself of the shackles of her former life, as she sees it.
I think at the heart of this novel is a sense of loneliness and disconnection that many people when they read the book will be able to relate to. The narrator speaks of the world breaking down around her, everyone and everything breaking down, and what she is seeking is something primal to shake her out of her numbness to life, society’s grinding expectations of her and what appears to be a profound depression.
It’s a pretty stark novel with an unlikeable narrator but it’s so well-written and her character is so well-drawn and so real, it’s impossible to look away. The only aspect I didn’t love was the moving back and forth in time - revealing the ending so early on took some of the tension out of the novel.
Years ago, people in Ireland spoke of women, usually in midlife who “suffered from their nerves”. What was usually meant but never spoken about was clinical depression. Part of you wants to cheer her on, the other part of you is yelling “stop” 🙉. Breakdown is to menopausal women what Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy is to new mothers. An unflinching read that makes for a great book club pick. Recommended. 4-4.5/5⭐️
February 7, 2024
I wanted this to be more Ottessa Moshfegh-y than it actually was.
January 28, 2024
This was a surprisingly fast and compulsive read for the unusual style. In spite of various irritations, I found myself turning the pages and finished very quickly, getting used to the writing style Sweeney uses. It helps that I am in somewhat the same demographic as the main character (slightly younger but not much) and enjoy my little getaways. I enjoyed reading it, for the most part, and I like the quest narrative - as Lauren the disgruntled daughter puts it, "You're off to find yourself - wtf?"
The climate-awareness is also a plus for me, and the relationship between Irish suburbia and planetary breakdown. The fact that the character's own breakdown is not carried out via plane is worth commenting on too.
The below criticism should be taken as me engaging with the narrative so in a way it's a good sign that I feel the annoyance I do with this character, and that I am not struggling with the eight deadly words. So Cathy Sweeney deserves credit for creating this engaging story and getting me to "argue" with it, hence the four stars. My issues are moral rather than technical.
The problem I have is the same as the plus point - my closeness to the narrator's demographic. That means that the differences loom as large as the similarities. I find the constant low-level anger she drags along with her wearying and a bit self-indulgent. I hate to play the cancer card, but honestly it factors in to my reaction to this character and how she sees her predicament. When you as a reader have received a massive existential kick up the arse in your own life, and have had to radically react and change to a life-threatening illness and disfiguring surgery, a character like the nameless MC, with their passivity and passive-aggressiveness, their constant regard of their body, can cause extreme irritation. Her family, with all their faults and virtues, are mere cyphers and never feel fully human, merely like the side of a matchbox for her to strike, and her escape from them commits the dramatic sin of not leading her anywhere new in her mind, only geographically. (The one exception to this is a scene where she tries to turn the front garden into a wildflower meadow and the husband objects with some bullshit excuse, when his real reason is that he wants a tidy lawn. I would have loved that to be expanded because that's a whole conversation right there.)
But my biggest bugbear is that while the book is admirably climate-aware, our brave protagonist appears to have no desire to get up off her arse and do something about it. She assures the reader that she has no intention of doing an Anna Karenina or an Emma Bovary, but when the Just Stop Oil crowd call to her house, she declines to help, citing a lack of energy. She declines to do anything, just wanders the Welsh shorelines with sad and piquant resignation about the lack of fish. And . This is highly ethically problematic.
And why does nobody talk about money? She's walked away from her pensionable job and presumably she's still contributing to the mortgage? It's a very realistic narrative so I would have expected she would check her bank account somewhere in the middle of all those whatsapps and texts.
So definitely a worthwhile read, even if I argued passionately with it.
The climate-awareness is also a plus for me, and the relationship between Irish suburbia and planetary breakdown. The fact that the character's own breakdown is not carried out via plane is worth commenting on too.
The below criticism should be taken as me engaging with the narrative so in a way it's a good sign that I feel the annoyance I do with this character, and that I am not struggling with the eight deadly words. So Cathy Sweeney deserves credit for creating this engaging story and getting me to "argue" with it, hence the four stars. My issues are moral rather than technical.
The problem I have is the same as the plus point - my closeness to the narrator's demographic. That means that the differences loom as large as the similarities. I find the constant low-level anger she drags along with her wearying and a bit self-indulgent. I hate to play the cancer card, but honestly it factors in to my reaction to this character and how she sees her predicament. When you as a reader have received a massive existential kick up the arse in your own life, and have had to radically react and change to a life-threatening illness and disfiguring surgery, a character like the nameless MC, with their passivity and passive-aggressiveness, their constant regard of their body, can cause extreme irritation. Her family, with all their faults and virtues, are mere cyphers and never feel fully human, merely like the side of a matchbox for her to strike, and her escape from them commits the dramatic sin of not leading her anywhere new in her mind, only geographically. (The one exception to this is a scene where she tries to turn the front garden into a wildflower meadow and the husband objects with some bullshit excuse, when his real reason is that he wants a tidy lawn. I would have loved that to be expanded because that's a whole conversation right there.)
But my biggest bugbear is that while the book is admirably climate-aware, our brave protagonist appears to have no desire to get up off her arse and do something about it. She assures the reader that she has no intention of doing an Anna Karenina or an Emma Bovary, but when the Just Stop Oil crowd call to her house, she declines to help, citing a lack of energy. She declines to do anything, just wanders the Welsh shorelines with sad and piquant resignation about the lack of fish. And . This is highly ethically problematic.
And why does nobody talk about money? She's walked away from her pensionable job and presumably she's still contributing to the mortgage? It's a very realistic narrative so I would have expected she would check her bank account somewhere in the middle of all those whatsapps and texts.
So definitely a worthwhile read, even if I argued passionately with it.
March 24, 2024
To start with the positive, the writing was lovely, very readable and I loved the format of the short nameless chapters. The signs in bold was clever and I particularly appreciated the CHANGE IS POSSIBLE one since my husband and I always comment on that when we see it and find it endlessly hilarious.
Apart from that though I really struggled with this one. If I were to sum it up in a sentence "upper middle class white lady has common life problems and deals with them using money" I think if you're going to make your character so thoroughly unlikeable and hard to identify with, then you have to make them fascinating or unpredictable so that the reader cares about them.
I really struggled to care about our nameless MC. She seemed to go through the world using everyone she encountered, her husband, her kids, random men, her best friend, and then discarding them when they no longer served her purpose. Not once in the entire book did she ever purposely do anything for anyone else. I found her whinging exhausting and all the talk of money, spending this ill gotten inheritance of hers, and I assume the proceeds of her divorce, to create this idyllic life in Wales and making it sound like a fricking hardship. I suppose if a book gives you a visceral reaction that's a sign of good writing, and certainly there's no lack of quality here, I'm just not sure what, if anything, I was supposed to get out if it.
Apart from that though I really struggled with this one. If I were to sum it up in a sentence "upper middle class white lady has common life problems and deals with them using money" I think if you're going to make your character so thoroughly unlikeable and hard to identify with, then you have to make them fascinating or unpredictable so that the reader cares about them.
I really struggled to care about our nameless MC. She seemed to go through the world using everyone she encountered, her husband, her kids, random men, her best friend, and then discarding them when they no longer served her purpose. Not once in the entire book did she ever purposely do anything for anyone else. I found her whinging exhausting and all the talk of money, spending this ill gotten inheritance of hers, and I assume the proceeds of her divorce, to create this idyllic life in Wales and making it sound like a fricking hardship. I suppose if a book gives you a visceral reaction that's a sign of good writing, and certainly there's no lack of quality here, I'm just not sure what, if anything, I was supposed to get out if it.
August 2, 2024
I loved this book and am moved to write a review having read some of the more negative reviews here. An unlikeable protagonist? Maybe but a very honest one. It’s not about liking her I feel but about understanding how being ‘a good girl’ and ‘not speaking up’ ‘conforming to society’s expectations can lead to a point in mid life where you find yourself utterly disconnected from yourself and all your important relationships and self medicating with wine. I’m not saying you need to be a middle aged Irish woman to get this (I am one) but I found it so relatable and so brilliantly written and incisive that I will be recommending it to all my middle aged female friends!!
March 19, 2024
excellent
January 18, 2024
Breakdown by Cathy Sweeney is out today (January 18th, 2024) with Weidenfeld & Nicolson and is described as ‘a novel about the rage and reckoning of a middle-aged, educated woman who has lived her life in accordance with the expectations of society’. Breakdown is a contemporary debut novel from the author of Modern Times, a short story collection, which garnered great praise from many, including Graham Norton, Sinéad Gleeson and Kevin Barry. This is a novel that stopped me in my tracks on multiple occasions as I weighed up what I had read, pondering on a phrase, a word, a chapter. There are many parts of this book that will resonate with many people as our narrator begins her journey from her comfortable suburban home in Dublin to a very remote cottage in Wales. This trip was unplanned. This journey was a split decision by a woman who had quite simply had enough.
She is an art teacher, married to a successful businessman and has two older teenagers, a boy and a girl. On the surface their marriage appears stable. Every member of the household does their own thing, with her daughter in college and her son almost finished with school. All their young lives, they have lacked nothing. Although working herself, their mother always made sure that food was on the table, lifts were available and their clothes washed and sorted. But she is very much off-kilter and has been for some time. Every day is the same. She repeats the same actions like a hamster on his wheel.
‘The day ahead is carved in marble. Get up. Get ready for work at a state-secondary school. Make sure son is up. Drink coffee. Let the cat out. Drop son to school. Drive to work. Teach class. Make small talk with colleagues. Pick up a bottle of wine on the way home. Make dinner. Pour wine. Tidy up. Put a wash on. Avoid row with daughter. Remind husband to contact his mother about her test results. Have bath. Mess around on phone. Finish bottle of wine. Turn on TV in bedroom. Fall asleep.’
Until early one Winter’s morning, she wakes up feeling different and makes a snap decision to just get dressed, grab her bag and her car keys and leave. No note. No explanation. Initially she thinks it will be for a few hours, maybe 24 hours maximum but what transpires is something very different indeed.
On this unmapped road away from her life, she takes a trip to Arklow, the town where she was born, reminiscing on days gone by. She sees the changes in the town, its jaded decline. She parks up at a nearby shopping centre and takes a moment to consider her next move. But that’s really the crux of the matter. She has no plan. Messages start to pop up on her phone from her family but she offers excuse after excuse. As the day passes the messages become more concerned, frustrated and angry. She becomes almost immune to them all. The further away she gets, the more she feels herself able to breathe again.
Unwittingly and very unexpectedly she finds herself in Rosslare with a vague plan to catch the boat to Wales. Within forty-eight hours her life alters dramatically as she scrutinises her life. She no longer recognises herself and who she has become.
Cathy Sweeney explores the deeper thoughts this woman has, as her internal monologue analyses decisions made and paths taken. With chapters focusing on the present and the future we begin to realise the seismic shift in her thinking and her lifestyle choices. Using short chapters, snippets of text messages and her own thoughts, as well as quite brief, but emotive, interactions with others along the way, we, as readers, are brought on an extraordinary journey.
Breakdown will resonate with many who live a life that fits in with societal expectations, with people whose lives took an unexpected path that was never supposed to be the end-goal. I have no doubt that many of us wake up some mornings imagining what if? What if our path had gone off in a completely different direction? What if we were really meant to be doing something else completely? Is there a better life elsewhere? Is the grass greener on the other side?
Breakdown is a novel that will get into your very soul. The styling of the writing and chapter layout is just perfect, leaving you quite emotionally wrung out and in a very contemplative mood. Breakdown is the story of a woman suffocating, unable to breathe, downtrodden with the weight of expectations that society has laid by her feet. Is she having an actual breakdown or is she breaking free? Well dear reader this really will be for you to decide. An exceptional, relatable and affecting tale, Breakdown is a compelling and challenging debut, one I have absolutely no qualms in recommending. Don’t miss this one!!
She is an art teacher, married to a successful businessman and has two older teenagers, a boy and a girl. On the surface their marriage appears stable. Every member of the household does their own thing, with her daughter in college and her son almost finished with school. All their young lives, they have lacked nothing. Although working herself, their mother always made sure that food was on the table, lifts were available and their clothes washed and sorted. But she is very much off-kilter and has been for some time. Every day is the same. She repeats the same actions like a hamster on his wheel.
‘The day ahead is carved in marble. Get up. Get ready for work at a state-secondary school. Make sure son is up. Drink coffee. Let the cat out. Drop son to school. Drive to work. Teach class. Make small talk with colleagues. Pick up a bottle of wine on the way home. Make dinner. Pour wine. Tidy up. Put a wash on. Avoid row with daughter. Remind husband to contact his mother about her test results. Have bath. Mess around on phone. Finish bottle of wine. Turn on TV in bedroom. Fall asleep.’
Until early one Winter’s morning, she wakes up feeling different and makes a snap decision to just get dressed, grab her bag and her car keys and leave. No note. No explanation. Initially she thinks it will be for a few hours, maybe 24 hours maximum but what transpires is something very different indeed.
On this unmapped road away from her life, she takes a trip to Arklow, the town where she was born, reminiscing on days gone by. She sees the changes in the town, its jaded decline. She parks up at a nearby shopping centre and takes a moment to consider her next move. But that’s really the crux of the matter. She has no plan. Messages start to pop up on her phone from her family but she offers excuse after excuse. As the day passes the messages become more concerned, frustrated and angry. She becomes almost immune to them all. The further away she gets, the more she feels herself able to breathe again.
Unwittingly and very unexpectedly she finds herself in Rosslare with a vague plan to catch the boat to Wales. Within forty-eight hours her life alters dramatically as she scrutinises her life. She no longer recognises herself and who she has become.
Cathy Sweeney explores the deeper thoughts this woman has, as her internal monologue analyses decisions made and paths taken. With chapters focusing on the present and the future we begin to realise the seismic shift in her thinking and her lifestyle choices. Using short chapters, snippets of text messages and her own thoughts, as well as quite brief, but emotive, interactions with others along the way, we, as readers, are brought on an extraordinary journey.
Breakdown will resonate with many who live a life that fits in with societal expectations, with people whose lives took an unexpected path that was never supposed to be the end-goal. I have no doubt that many of us wake up some mornings imagining what if? What if our path had gone off in a completely different direction? What if we were really meant to be doing something else completely? Is there a better life elsewhere? Is the grass greener on the other side?
Breakdown is a novel that will get into your very soul. The styling of the writing and chapter layout is just perfect, leaving you quite emotionally wrung out and in a very contemplative mood. Breakdown is the story of a woman suffocating, unable to breathe, downtrodden with the weight of expectations that society has laid by her feet. Is she having an actual breakdown or is she breaking free? Well dear reader this really will be for you to decide. An exceptional, relatable and affecting tale, Breakdown is a compelling and challenging debut, one I have absolutely no qualms in recommending. Don’t miss this one!!
June 2, 2024
Petition to make every man read this book. So needed, I loved it.
March 1, 2024
It’s fascinating to read user reviews for this book: most passionate and most divisive.
This book has made me rethink my use of the word “likeable” to describe a main character and will influence using likeability as a barometer for depth, readability or reality.
I inhaled this book in four separate sittings through a few days while in Dublin on a holiday and thought about it in between.
She’s privileged, detached, terse and sometimes she feels so alien from herself that it felt like we were learning together.
It’s true that there are themes that are not touched upon, (financial security, culture, mental health) but that’s a different book to write and I am here to read the book that’s been written and in my hands now.
As a childless middle-aged woman, I do not have personal knowledge of the feelings of mothers of a certain age. I do have knowledge of societal standards and pressure for women while they slowly disappear from the eye of the world. It feels good to see things laid bare here even when it is gross and confusing.
I really love sparse writing like this and I’m keen to read more from Sweeney now.
Read this book if you want but it will be here (as will this experience for many women) whether the reader feels an innate need to resonate, judge or neither.
This book has made me rethink my use of the word “likeable” to describe a main character and will influence using likeability as a barometer for depth, readability or reality.
I inhaled this book in four separate sittings through a few days while in Dublin on a holiday and thought about it in between.
She’s privileged, detached, terse and sometimes she feels so alien from herself that it felt like we were learning together.
It’s true that there are themes that are not touched upon, (financial security, culture, mental health) but that’s a different book to write and I am here to read the book that’s been written and in my hands now.
As a childless middle-aged woman, I do not have personal knowledge of the feelings of mothers of a certain age. I do have knowledge of societal standards and pressure for women while they slowly disappear from the eye of the world. It feels good to see things laid bare here even when it is gross and confusing.
I really love sparse writing like this and I’m keen to read more from Sweeney now.
Read this book if you want but it will be here (as will this experience for many women) whether the reader feels an innate need to resonate, judge or neither.
February 8, 2024
« You think that it is you that is breaking down - your family, your community, your society - but it is the whole world, and the sadness I've been carrying around is about this new reality that nothing - not even nature - is immune from breaking down. »
So many things to say. This book resonates within me in the most intimate way. It rang something about the darkest part of my mind, it was like reading the thoughts I don’t let myself think.
This debut novel is magnificent in its rarity. It’s blunt and true and moving and I couldn’t put it down.
So many things to say. This book resonates within me in the most intimate way. It rang something about the darkest part of my mind, it was like reading the thoughts I don’t let myself think.
This debut novel is magnificent in its rarity. It’s blunt and true and moving and I couldn’t put it down.
May 31, 2024
I was not expecting to love this as much as I did when I first began. I thought the protagonist's experiences were too different from my own for me to understand but Sweeney writes what all of us feel some or most of the time.
If you've ever thought of escaping to the Welsh countryside, this is the book for you. Whilst running away doesn't fix anything, taking a step back from the life you're in now to remember that days aren't just made up of hours to get stuff done in, does help. Couldn't have read this at a more poignant time as I changed jobs and moved to a new city.
If you've ever thought of escaping to the Welsh countryside, this is the book for you. Whilst running away doesn't fix anything, taking a step back from the life you're in now to remember that days aren't just made up of hours to get stuff done in, does help. Couldn't have read this at a more poignant time as I changed jobs and moved to a new city.
February 25, 2024
I didn't think I would like this when I was gifted it. If I'm honest, I thought it was probably chick lit with middle-class undertones, which it certainly is. But the underlying feeling resonated with me as did many little details and observations the author makes through the main character – a woman thoroughly dissatisfied with what late modern middle-class life had to offer to her. I was pleasantly surprised. A quick but intense read that I will think back to.
March 18, 2024
Very different to Modern Times, which I also loved, but still such a particular, clear and sharp voice which is really unique
June 11, 2024
This book captures exactly the trapped feeling middle aged woman can have and the relentless needs placed upon them. At the beginning of the book part of me related intensely to the protagonist but later, maybe half way through the book I became disjointed from her decision.
She was obviously totally out of touch with herself and not living the life she wanted, waiting til it exploded. This part frustrates me, as it doesn’t have to be like that! I also am a firm believe that the small decision (getting on a train which she hadn’t planned on getting), is just that, a small choice and although it changes everything, it’s also a kind of nearly random event, and doesn’t necessarily have a big “meaning” and so it captures how random big changes in life can be (big changes a result of small decisions).
I think the books portrays that realistically, showing also how her mind is trying to “understand” how that happened, when in fact there is nothing really to understand about it.
She could have easily turned these feeling and actions into a one day “revolt” and then worked to change her family life into something more authentic for her. Part of me is disappointed in her for making that decision to get the boat after drinking 3 pints, a decision which changes everything and yet part of me is thrilled by her “dangerous” and reckless choices. So as the book progressed I found myself getting more frustrated with the protagonist.
At the end of the book I ultimately felt very sad for her, and felt like it didn’t have to be as it is now, and that she didn’t seem particularly happy in what she had decided and chosen for herself.
May 25, 2024
I wish that I had read this book instead of listened. I found the narrator so grating and for me ruined what I reckon is a good read. Needed something to listen to in the car on a long journey so persisted!
March 30, 2024
Breakdown / Cathy Sweeney
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
~ You think that it is you that is breaking down - your family, your community, your society - but it is the whole world, and the sadness I've been carrying around is about this new reality that nothing - not even nature - is immune from breaking down... ~
This was really good, but certainly not for everyone. Breakdowns of individuals, of society, of the past and of the present, and what is to be in the future.
On an otherwise unremarkable November morning, our 50-something unnamed protagonist gets up and decides that instead of going to her teaching job and running around after her husband, 21-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son, she will simply walk away from her life. Destination unknown, she gets into her black SUV, then travels by train and ferry, and the reader is taken along for the ride over 200-odd pages.
You find yourself drawn in, into this woman’s journey. The why or lack there of. Reasons peppered through but not always fleshed out.
You can sympathise with the MC, but at times is very unliveable and eats into her privilege and selfishness. You have very contrasting opinions throughout.
She is lonely, tired, and spent, and it shows you never know who may just break down when all just seems ok.
Wales though sounds deadly.
Breakdown makes for uncomfortable yet somewhat relatable reading.
I see you Cathy Sweeney.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
~ You think that it is you that is breaking down - your family, your community, your society - but it is the whole world, and the sadness I've been carrying around is about this new reality that nothing - not even nature - is immune from breaking down... ~
This was really good, but certainly not for everyone. Breakdowns of individuals, of society, of the past and of the present, and what is to be in the future.
On an otherwise unremarkable November morning, our 50-something unnamed protagonist gets up and decides that instead of going to her teaching job and running around after her husband, 21-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son, she will simply walk away from her life. Destination unknown, she gets into her black SUV, then travels by train and ferry, and the reader is taken along for the ride over 200-odd pages.
You find yourself drawn in, into this woman’s journey. The why or lack there of. Reasons peppered through but not always fleshed out.
You can sympathise with the MC, but at times is very unliveable and eats into her privilege and selfishness. You have very contrasting opinions throughout.
She is lonely, tired, and spent, and it shows you never know who may just break down when all just seems ok.
Wales though sounds deadly.
Breakdown makes for uncomfortable yet somewhat relatable reading.
I see you Cathy Sweeney.
March 20, 2023
A terrific exploration of the mind of one, middle-aged woman who wakes up one morning and decides she simply cannot hack her life as it is, so she just walks out of it. We follow the woman on the day she leaves but are given glimpses of what has led to the decision and what happens afterwards. It's poetic, sad, hopeful and evisceratingly relatable.
March 7, 2024
Great book very relatable!
March 24, 2024
If I have to read that this woman had her long hair cut into a bob one more time…
April 2, 2024
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Maybe don't read this if you may also be on the cusp of a menty b! It's too good/accurate!
Maybe don't read this if you may also be on the cusp of a menty b! It's too good/accurate!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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