Ciska's Book Chest

Aidan Parkinson is originally from Dublin but living in Boston. He writes plays and is an actor, mostly in the Irish theater circuit. Naked Mommy is his first novel. For more information in him and his works visit http://www.aidanparkinson.comThe Naked Mommy tells the story of two brothers, inseparable as children but grown apart as adults. Liam Caffrey is a crook and petty thief who would love to settle and get a family life in his big house. Mel Caffrey grew up to be a monk but lost faith and has to move out of the monastery. At the same time another person is returning to town. Nuala Macree, eco activist and extremely beautiful. As soon as the men spot Nuala both plan on making her his wife, which causes even more tension between the two brothers than their different choices in live have ever done.What they do not know is that Nuala only came back to town to help with a protest against a company wanting to make a water reservoir of the lake close to the town. While everyone is working to achieve their own goal, the town is awaiting a surprise as not expected.The reason I singed up for this book at the member giveaway program on Librarything was because I could think what the title of the book had to do with the description. My curiosity was woken. In the first three chapters of the book you get introduced to the three main characters, they are put down pretty clear and you get an introduction in their goals, or lack of them, immediately. Fortunately for me you know the meaning behind the title after tree chapters too. The writer used a lot of 'local' words while telling the story. This does help setting the atmosphere along with the very descriptive ways of telling what the scenes are looking like. You really get the feeling you are sitting in a corner of a pub looking at people talking over a pint. Sometimes I was a bit overwhelmed though with the amount of details. It made me loose track of the story sometimes and I had to reread parts to get back on track again. The use of such specific words makes it harder to for people with a different mother tongue to read too (i am a native dutch) Despite the heavy subjects, big cooperations taking over towns/ nature for their own profit, love and important life choices the author managed to keep the tone light and at points the book has a funny light sarcastic tone making fun of it all. This makes the book a nice entertaining read.Some of the notes I made while reading:The first chapter has a bit of a weird end. You got the feeling you are listening to a men thinking about his life and all of a sudden in three lines you are 4 weeks further. Sr Teresa and Sister Teresa, after her introduction she is called Sr. Teresa for a while and at the end of the book she is back at being Sister Teresa.The amount of details made getting into the story a bit of a struggle for me, needed to read more pages to get back in the flow of the storyOverall probably not a book I would read again but surely no loss of time either.