An absolutely beautiful and moving story. The writing was natural and I found myself reading straight through to the end. It felt as though I were there on the farm myself.

Many intense emotions are packed into this gentle, simple, innocent yet powerful and moving novella which takes place in rural Ireland one hot summer. The story is told by a little girl who is used to walking on eggshells at home and who does not know real love, only awkward nothingness. One day her indifferent father takes her to live with a homeless couple for the summer as her mother is pregnant yet again. At first she carefully watches what she does and gauges the reactions of John and Edna Kinsella and is mystified at the differences between where she comes from and a real caring home environment. The Kinsellas' imperfections are shown, too, but they treat the little girl with kindness. Their secret grief is briefly mentioned. The girl now knows what she is missing at home...if she returns home.

The writing is basic and childlike, of course, but each word has a reason to be included. There are no extras. One doesn't dwell on the bad when reading it. Though fictional, I do want the girl to find happiness!

Those who yearn for a simply-told story from the perspective of an unloved child at home who discovers love with strangers ought to read this.

My sincere thank you to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for the privilege of reading this touching story.

Republished to coincide with the release of The Quiet Girl movie, this small but emotionally deep story conveys as much in what it doesn't say, as in what it does.

‘You don’t ever have to say anything,’ he [Kinsella] says. ‘Always remember that as a thing you need never do. Many’s the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.’

A father drives his young daughter deep into County Wexford to leave her with distant relatives - strangers to the girl - for reasons, and for a length of time, she hasn't been told. Her siblings have stayed at home with their mother, heavily pregnant with yet another not-really-wanted child. John & Edna Kinsella are a kind, childless older couple, who quickly begin to open the girl's eyes to what it is like to live in an environment where warmth and love abound. But the Kinsellas have a tragic secret and when the girl is told the details by a gossiping neighbour, her fragile contentment begins to crumble.

Somewhere between a short-story and a novella, this book can easily be read in one sitting, and will be all the more powerful if that's how it's consumed. I can't stop thinking about it, and the ambiguous ending now has me desperate to see the film to see how it has been interpreted for the screen.

Claire Keegan is one of my favorite authors. Her Irish story telling reminds me of my two grandmothers who immigrated from Ireland to the United States. Foster is a lovely story of a child who is one of many in her family. She gets to experience unconditional love and to feel treasured when when she spends the summer with a childless couple who treasure and nurture her while dealing with their own devastating loss. This short story, like all of Claire Keegan’s books, left me longing for more.

Similar in structure and themes to the Booker Prize longlisted "Small things like these", " Foster" is a simple, emotional novella about a powerful parent-child bond between two strangers. I think I liked this early work from Claire Keegan more than "Small things like these" because the secret of the plot isn't as accessible, as it isn't related to something as well-known as Magdalene laundries.

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Foster by Claire Keegan is a short novel, talking about an Irish girl living in a foster home for a short time, though she doesn’t know it. Ms. Keegan is an award-winning short story writer from Ireland.

A young girl is sent to live in a foster home in rural Ireland by her larger Irish family. She does not know when she’ll return home.

On the farm, the girl finds love and comfort she never had and begins to blossom.

Even though Foster by Claire Keegan is a very short book, it’s packed with sadness, but also warmth. We get to know the little girl who is the protagonist, even though we don’t know her name.

The young girl lived somewhere around Clonegal, and the drive to the Kinsellas’ rural farm in Wexford is long. We feel her anxiety as she had never met the couple, supposedly relatives, before.

Told in the first person, the young girl absorbs much of what she sees, hears, and feels. The foster couple actually talks to her, teach her, validate her, and helps her do better when she makes mistakes. They never had children, lavish on the little girl all the love they could muster.

The writing is beautiful, haunting, and spiritual at the same time. I’m sure there are more layers I undoubtedly missed. Especially enjoyable is the speech patterns which, to me, sounded very charming and exactly what I would have thought an Irish accent sounds like.

It says a lot about us when reading a book such as this, I expected something bad to happen every time I turned the page. Not that being torn away from your home, as miserable as it might be, and being put indefinitely with strangers isn’t bad enough. There’s nothing “evil” in this story, but it is extremely profound, especially when considering its length.

I also enjoyed the depiction of the countryside, neighborhoods, and neighbors. They seem to me very real, and very natural without Ms. Keegan forcing anything upon the reader.

I fell in love with Claire Keegan's writing when I read Small Things Like These after it won the Orwell Prize, shortly before it was shortlisted for the Booker, so I immediately added her backlist to my TBR and was excited to see Foster was being published in the US so soon. While Foster doesn't have the political ideas or tension of Small Things Like These (though she slips in socioeconomic issues and mentions of news at the time), Keegan's spare but evocative writing shines here, and she expertly shows us the family, house, environment in a tight novella under 100 pages. She excels at writing the perspective of a child who doesn't quite understand the adult world around her. This quiet and nuanced story of our unnamed narrator receiving love and attention from her foster relatives for the first time is so lovely and everyday; there is no real high drama, no real plot, just feeling like real people. While I could read more about the Kinsellas and our narrator, Keegan continues to make such an impact in just a short novella and make it feel complete. So looking forward to reading more of her work.

After reading Keegan’s novella that had been nominated for the Booker, I was eager to get my hands on more of her work. This short story/novelette, Foster, did not disappoint.

In Foster, we meet a young girl who comes from a poor family. Her parents, expecting another baby, send her off to her relatives’ for the summer. There, she experiences the pleasure of being an only child and truly thrives under their care.

Keegan packs a lot of emotion into a short story. While the young girl remains nameless, you can really feel how safe and at home she feels in her new space, making the end of the story that much more heartbreaking. That said, I did find I wanted a little more from this work, especially ro know a bit more about the family the girl comes from. There’s so much that can be gleaned about class in Ireland from this situation and I wanted a bit more.

Even so, I loved returning to Keegan’s writing and this story was very special.

I read so many good reviews about this novella that I decided to read it, despite this not being in my regular genres … and now I’m at outlier who didn’t like it.

It’s not that I didn’t like it; I didn’t like the writing style, but it looks like I’m in the minority on that. It was a decent story, a sad story, but nothing that blew my mind. A young girl in Ireland goes and stays with another couple while her mom is pregnant, they are kind to her for many reasons, then it’s over. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Like I said, this is fine, but I just wasn’t a huge fan. Luckily, it was a shorter story and a very quick read. It was a little cute, quite depressing, and the ending was slightly confusing. Maybe you’ll love it more, though. Three stars for one that just didn’t grab me like I’d hoped it would.

(Thank you to Grove Atlantic, Claire Keegan, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review. This book’s expected publication date is October 31, 2022.)

Man, Claire Keegan can write! A novella, under 90 pages, tells a story full of love and family and hope and am unease and tension throughout. I loved every word - Keegan is a master at her craft and it feels like a gift reading her wise stories that are sparse in a brilliant way. Amazing. Thanks to Faber and Faber for the copy. What a gift.

4 lovely stars

Reading “was like learning to ride the bike; I felt myself taking off, the freedom of going places I couldn’t have gone before, and it was easy.”

From the publisher: A small girl is sent to live with foster parents on a farm in rural Ireland, without knowing when she will return home. In the strangers’ house, she finds a warmth and affection she has not known before and slowly begins to blossom in their care.

Keegan’s book transports one to a different time in Ireland. Not a time where bad stuff doesn’t happen, and families can barely feed the many young ones. But a time when everyone knew their neighbor – sometimes too much. “Many’s the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.”

Foster is a gentle story folding beauty, sadness, and kindness together. The book leaves me with a feeling of hope. That doesn’t happen often enough with the new books in today’s market.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(thanks to @groveatlantic for this little copy of foster!!) (this edition comes out november 1st though i think the novella was already published in the new yorker)

if i had to give a two word description for this story i'd say something like warm/wholesome gothic - really good vibes for end of summer and early autumn. we follow our unnamed child narrator as she spends a summer with foster relatives in 1980s ireland and finds affection and quietude in their home that is missing from her family's. the anne of green gables type tale is constantly under threat from various trope-bending supernatural elements - we learn that the couple she is staying with lost a child her age when he drowned and the narrator sees little boys in the wallpaper, a hand pulling her into the well on the property. tragedy, we sense, is only ever a few sentences away. despite this, the narrator and her new family spend most of their time in the pleasant rhythms of daily life. if there's a moral here, it's maybe something about never knowing what genre of story we're living but trying to be happy and kind to others anyway. or maybe something about the permanence of grief, the ways we sense other people's 'ghosts.' whatever it is, i LOVED this and will def be looking up more of keegan's work in the future. would recommend for fans of the wonder by emma donoghue or any of the anne books.

Claire Keegan really blows me away again. This beautiful novella says so much in the things it doesn't say. Her writing is so vivid that it really effectively puts you in the shoes of the characters. This one will be super popular.

A gem. This expanded short story truly deserved all the accolades and especially the award for best story, the Davy Byrnes Award. A young girl from a family bursting at its seams is sent to spend summer with relatives, and experiences love and attention for the first time in her life. Another example of the excellence of Claire Keegan's talent.

A gorgeously written and very moving novella about a neglected and abused little girl who is taken in for the summer by a loving childless couple.

The story takes place in Ireland.

My only criticism would be that at qtimes the language seems a bit too advanced for the child, who narrates the story.

Otherwise, it’s just perfect.

Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Press for providing an ARC (Advanced Review Copy) of this
novella.

#Foster #NetGalley

This expanded short story is a fine, subtle thing, all about nuance and the unstated. Keegan is deft and detailed, cinematic although never excessively explicit. She deserves the praise she’s currently getting.

I devoured the beautiful short story in one sitting - a heartwarming story of a couple fostering a little girl in rural Ireland. It grabbed my emotions when the girl appreciated the attention/affection she received from the foster parents, her family weren’t the type to show affection. Keegan wrote this beautifully, the words came across poetically. I’m amazed that it was only 96 pages long but it was powerful enough to make an impact. I will now go ready all of Claire Keegan books! Highly recommended. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Having read only one other Claire Keegan book before, I knew that I wanted to give my full attention to this novel and it requires uninterrupted reading time. You can and should read it in one sitting, and savour every word. It is short, painful and beautiful. Heart-wrenching and uplifting at the same time.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for an ARC.

This title was too short! I loved the story but I wanted to know more about the girl and the couple that fostered her in rural Ireland for the summer.. We never find out what the girl's name is but she seems to be under 10 years old and we are led to believe that she is the eldest in the family which is still growing - her mother is expecting another baby. She doesn't know the Kinsellas but they live where her mother's family come from so they may be relatives.
Her family seem to show little affection for each other but the Kinsellas show her what family life can be like. They give her attention and affection which helps her to blossom. The couple has a secret grief which she finds out but it doesn't detract from their care for her.
Keegan's writing contains both the upfront positive aspect of her life with the Kinsellas and the shadow of the secret in the background. There is emotional depth to the story that brings out the character of both John and Edna Kinsella as well as the developing child. I will look for more by this author.
Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC of this book; the opinions expressed are my own.

After reading two other books by Claire Keegan over the past few weeks, I decided first, that I love this author and second, that I would take a little break because not all of her works were available at my public libraries or on Hoopla. I especially could not find this book, Foster, which is enjoying a new publication, so of course I became obsessed looking for it. And then, what do you know? The book showed up on NetGalley. No sooner had I requested it when I received an email from Grove Press offering me a copy for my honest review (talk about timing). So, first of all, my honest review. I loved the book and I love this author (one might have guessed since this was the THIRD book I read by her in as many weeks).

A young girl’s father drives her to the Kinsella farm in another town, where Mr. and Mrs. Kinsella have agreed to look after her for the summer until her pregnant mother gives birth to sibling #? (everyone has lost count). The young girl clearly leaves the reader to believe that her mother would be happy for her to stay indefinitely, and she is clearly troubled by this. Her fear that she is unloved is validated by the fact that her mother is not affectionate by nature and rarely hugs or nurtures her other than the odd query whether she would like another pancake on a morning.

Mr. and Mrs. Kinsella take the time to parent her, include her almost completely in the family circle of friends, teaching and nurturing her in family chores, personal hygiene, values, and instructing her in the proper way to respond and converse, plying her with treats and affection that she has never experienced. The Young Girl clearly loved the routine, order and stability, and threw herself into the role with enthusiasm.

Watching the child’s emotional growth and development in just those few months where the Kinsella’s were devoted solely to her was captivating. She was so warmly treated that she dared to indulge herself in the fantasy of staying on and continuing in the role of “only” child in the Kinsella household.

We were offered a glimpse of the close-knit farming community where neighbors. including the Kinsella’s, reached out to help one-another….and also to gossip about one another.

It was interesting to watch how the child’s loyalties are naturally bestowed, on her family and how those loyalties manifested also in defense of the Kinsellas, who she came to love and view as surrogate parents.

So, How do I Love Thee Claire Keegan?

I love thee because your prose is beautiful
I love thee because the reactions of your characters are pitch perfect
I love thee because your stories are original, unsettling, and unexpected
I love thee because you are not sappy and make me cry, although your characters or the circumstances they find themselves in are often tragic
I love thee because you take me to places and times I have never visited (including emotionally and intellectually)
I love thee because you say what you have to say in 200+ pages or less (God Bless You. My patience and attention spans just that far)
I love thee for dozens more reasons, but I have to get dinner ready or 16 people will go hungry tonight…

Thank thee NetGalley and Grove Press for sharing this amazing book with me. I loved it.