The Amendments by Niamh Mulvey. A family saga following mother and daughter Dolores and Nell and their experiences of growing up a woman in Ireland. Inescapably this includes religion, changing attitudes to sex, family, career, friendship and, as the title suggests, access to abortion. Nuanced and thoughtful, it flits backwards and forwards through time and generations and has a good sense of place. The ending was genuinely moving. For fans of Elizabeth Strout and Ann Patchett but with an Irish slant. I love Ann Enright and for me this was a bit more literal and less poetic(I've rounded it up to 4 stars from the 3 1/2 I would personally give it) but if you like a family saga then I don’t think this could be bettered.

This is a debut novel from an Irish writer who made award shortlists for her story collection “Hearts And Bones”. This is the 9th debut novel I’ve read so far this year and the standard is high, but this is one of the best.
It is a tale of three women, main character Nell, her mother, Dolores and Martina, who is one of the mentors of a religious group Nell falls into in her teens. Nell joins La Obra de los Hogarenos (the Work of the Homemakers), an offshoot of the Catholic Church, a movement against what was seen as increasing secularisation and in favour of home life and fostering an international brotherhood of like-minded souls. Not quite a cult, but a group which does influence Nell with its views around the time that discussions in Ireland on increasing pro-choice rights were being discussed.
Dolores had been involved in a previous consideration of these issues with the Eighth Amendment of 1983 when she had been a member of a women’s group. Time moves backwards and forwards for these women throughout the narrative as more of their lives are gradually revealed to us and each other.
The catalyst for this is counselling sessions for Nell, about to become a parent with her pregnant partner Adrienne and facing this future with fear and a reluctance which needs sorting.
I was really involved with the women and their lives as they move back and forth from Ireland. Time away seems to enable them to find themselves and help clarify feelings, Dolores in London and Nell in Spain but are they able to continue with that growth when they return home? The religious aspect I found fascinating and the theme of choice- for the characters in their own lives and from the restrictions of the legislation brings the novel together very nicely. This is certainly a high-quality read and it’s great to discover yet another first-rate Irish author with huge potential.
The Amendments is published on 18th March by Picador. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

The Amendments follows Nell, an Irish teenager, her mother Delores and Martina who Nell meets through joining the Movement. I don't want to give the story away as it builds so brilliantly in the book, but Nell finds herself in position which changes the trajectory of her life and stays with her into adulthood.

Fundamental to the story is how the 8th amendment affected these women individually at different times of life. I found myself imagining what it would have been like to be any one of them and just couldn't even comprehend living through this as a woman. I'm just so glad times have changed!!

This is quite a hard read, but it's absolutely brilliant. Would 100% recommend!

I have read quite a lot of fiction written by Irish women over the past few years and so much of it has been truly outstanding. As a result I was excited to have the opportunity to read and review this debut novel by Niamh Mulvey. The novel's title refers to changes in Irish abortion legislation (the Eighth Amendment of 1983 effectively banned abortion in the Republic of Ireland).

In the main the narrative shifts between Nell’s mum Delores' coming of age in 1980s Dublin on the fringe of Ireland’s emerging feminist movement and that of Nell herself, working as a chef in modern-day London with her partner Adrienne. Nell agrees to try for a baby with Adrienne, but after just two rounds of IVF Adrienne successfully becomes pregnant, which forces Nell to reluctantly confront inner demons from her teenage past.

As a young teen at the turn of the millennium, Nell becomes involved with the cult-like Catholic youth movement The Hermanos, where the narrative introduces us to youth leader Martina. It was this section of the story that didn't quite work for me, although I can see that it was a useful vehicle to introduce key elements such as Nell's first love and a character (Martina) who influences Nell's future pivotal decisions.

A heck of a lot of issues are tackled in this book, perhaps too many. It's also worth noting that some of these may prove triggering for readers (abortion, infant loss, rape, suicide, depression, alcoholism). I found the flitting narrative confusing at times and the novel lost me a bit in the middle.

I did feel a real strength of this book was the way Mulvey describes the inner psychology of her characters. Particularly the melancholic feeling of loneliness and disconnect experienced by Nell as a result of her guilt and residual trauma. It made for painfully insightful reading. I felt the story reached a satisfactory conclusion and the exposition of the secret Nell harbours through most of the book is well handled.

Would I read more by this author? Yes I would. I'm intrigued to see what Mulvey writes next.

With thanks to both Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for the ARC for this review.

If I could give this book 50, 000 stars, I would. It is perfection. Following one core family, it dances between mothers, daughters & friends, delicately but powerfully revealing the pain and strength it has always taken to be a woman in Catholic Ireland.

This my have resonated with me more than usual. Having been raised Catholic on a farm outside Dublin, I felt I knew these people, these places, these unspoken thoughts and embers of rage deep in my core. The characters, themes and issues covered are painful, but Mulvey tackles and shapes each once with such brilliance and humanity you are just left in awe.

I cannot fault this book and I recommend it to absolutely everyone.

Irish fiction is the best- this booked confirmed it. This was an excellent read which was devoured in one sitting.

I received an advanced reading copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Pan Macmillan, Picador, and the author Niamh Mulvey.
This was really a tale of two halves, I found the beginning quite slow and almost considered DNF'ing but then things picked up considerably in the second half which was much more involving and completely gripping and heartbreaking by the end.
Would definitely score higher if just based on the second half but 3 stars as whole.

Spanning 3 generations, The Amendments gives insight into differing opinions on women's reproductive rights in Ireland in a way that I feel was sympathetic to both sides.

Being a novel about women's rights, the main focus is on the female characters. The men in their lives are not excluded from the novel, and we do sometimes hear their opinions, but they are not placed centre stage. I liked the presence of the men, sometimes they feel a bit forgotten in women's literature.

I loved this book, the women's stories were relatable, the characters developed in interesting ways and the central issues of faith and women's reproductive rights were handled with nuance and care.

A beautifully written debut that covers such sensitive, yet, important topics to discuss and digest of Irelands past. It is compelling, well paced and enlivened with strong characters and emotional pull. Again, Mulvey is a part of Irish writing next golden age.

The story follows two female protagonists who are having a baby together. The writing is delicate and compassionate. However I felt that it could be 50-100 pages shorter.

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced e-copy.

I found this book rather disjointed. Initially you begin to get involved with Nell. then you are led off at a tanjent for a long time all about Delores. Next thing it is all about Nell again. Their family story is not smoothly told. Martina is thrown into the mix to give Nell something of an excuse for her poor treatment of Daniel.
The history of the Amendments is vaguely thrown into the mix.

This story starts in London 2018 but then takes its readers back to Ireland in the 1980s and 90s. Its title refers to Ireland’s 8th Amendment of the Constitution Act 1983 which inserted a subsection into Ireland’s constitution recognising for both, the pregnant woman and the unborn – the right to life.

This political and religious backdrop (and other political spin-offs) provide indeed the main reference points of this novel, but at its heart it is an in-depth investigation of mother-daughter relationships explored through the lives of mothers and daughters within the same family. Through detailed character studies of the main protagonists, it opens up the intrinsic nature of the special bond between Nell, her mother Dolores and Dolores’ mother Briget. This level of detail feels in some places a bit convoluted but I didn’t mind, since it breathes life into the experiences of all three women and puts them firmly within their societal and cultural contexts.

Structurally it starts and ends with Nell and her partner Adrienne who carries their baby. For Nell to become a good parent, she needs to come to terms with her past and the trauma it harbours. To understand her, where she is coming from and where she is heading, we are taken back to her youth and to the experiences of her mother and grandmother. The story explores the things that were said and done and even more so the many silences and the things that should have been said and done, which go to make up the burden that each of them carry. A compelling read.

I am grateful to NetGalley and Picador for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a truly epic novel about the lives of interconnected Irish women from the 1980s onwards. The loose benchmarks for their stories are the series of abortion referenda in Ireland over the decades: the calamitous Pro-Life amendment added to the constitution in 1983; the seismic and tragic X Case in 1992 and the three-part referenda that resulted from it (caused largely by the confusion and ambiguity of the PLA from '83); the 2002 referenda to try, again, to clarify parts of the 1992 result; and then finally the 2018 that overturned 1983 and legalised abortion in the country. These different amendments cast a long shadow over the lives of generations of Irish women and girls, and Niamh Mulvey's novel artfully explores how that manifested in the lives of her characters - spiritually, sexually, emotionally, psychologically. An extremely impressive full length debut.

'She had lost so much, she felt like the clothes hangers in her wardrobe, her clothes fell off of them onto the floor and the hangers hung there emptily defiant, and that was her.'

Nell and her partner Adrienne are on the verge of becoming parents, but, while Adrienne is excited and optimistic, Nell is crippled with doubts about her ability to be a mother. At Adrienne's suggestion, they begin therapy together, and Nell vows to open up about her past to the woman she loves - but can she bear to?

The Amendments is an exploration of womanhood, family and identity, told from the perspectives of Nell and her mother, Dolores, and set against the backdrop of a changing Ireland between the introduction of the Eighth Amendment in 1983 and its repeal in 2018. The author also explores the life of Nell's maternal grandmother, Brigid, albeit as a more peripheral character, and this further illustrates how life for young women was governed by strict cultural (and religious) norms to a greater and lesser extent over the 20th and 21st centuries.

Nell is a very introspective character; huge swaths of her chapters are devoted to her considering the kind of person she is, and pondering the kind of person she should be - then how to convince herself and those around her that she is, in fact, this kind of person. This navel gazing makes more sense when the story focuses on Nell's adolescence, and her characterisation is more understandable once the reader learns her big secret, but this does not occur until the very end of the book, so I found Nell's chapters somewhat meandering and repetitive. I also wasn't gripped by the story of the religious movement that Nell became caught up in as a teenager, and found these sections unengaging.

More interesting to me were Dolores and Brigid, both of whom felt like authentic female characters of their generation; it was particularly compelling to read how Dolores' experience was shaped by massive social changes of the time - from the Eighth Amendment to the availability of the contraceptive pill. I found Dolores' state of discombobulation and uncertainty to be more interestingly written than Nell's and more believable too.

The writing is strong - there are some beautiful passages and, as an exploration of the role shame has had in shaping Irish women's lives for generations, it is excellent. I just wish I had felt more of a connection to the protagonist and her back story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review!
4.5⭐
An honest, smart and thought provoking novel. I found it a delight to read and thoroughly enjoyed it. I am so happy I snagged a copy. I hope I read more of the author's works in future.

You do NOT need to ask me twice to read a generational story about Irish women. The Amendments follows Nell, her mother Dolores, and, in part, Dolores’s mother Brigid.

Nell and her partner Adrienne are about to have a baby & are going to therapy to ~work things out~ and ~prepare~. Through this we go back to Nell’s teenage years and then back to Dolores’s youth & her relationship with her mother. These women are challenged and changed by how Ireland treats girls & women in society and their feelings come bubbling to the surface when, in each time period, a referendum is held.

The first 30 pages of this were pretty slow for me but it immediately picked up when we delved into Dolores’s story. I found this to be very moving and would say if you were involved in organising for Repeal, or even referendums before it, this will throw up some of the darker days. So proceed with a little caution!

An excellent debut.

Absolutely loved this poignant debut novel. Beautifully written, real and complex characters. A book of our time . Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy

A first novel for Niamh Mulvey, and I hope more to come. This evoked memories of my past and how I related to my mother.
In Ireland, during the 80's the 8th amendment was also in place protecting the right to life of the unborn child, which banned abortion...
The writing is absorbing and mainly about Delores and her daughter Nell who is pregnant with her first child with Adrianne..

This is the coming of age of women, the rights of women, and deals with religion, relationships, and how the different generations were able to deal with them ...
Deloras went through the referendum of the 8th amendment and Nell after the amendment was repealed these timelines made a difference in how the women dealt with life.

A lovely read and a significant one, thank you for writing this as one of the ones I would highly recommend

Published 18 April 2024. This debut novel has as a backdrop almost, the Eighth Amendment (1983) in Ireland which recognised equally the right of the foetus and the right of the mother. This was repealed in 2018 and the novel covers the whole period. The focus is not on the Amendment but upon three women. Brigid, Dolores and Nell. Dolores was involved in feminist activism in 1983 when the Amendment was being discussed and we follow her life to present day, learning also about her mother Brigid. The life of Dolores is, I think the most interesting because she lives through a complicated time for women. The story begins with her daughter, Nell, who is with her partner, Adrienne at a therapist's. Adrienne is expecting their first child but is aware that Nell has secrets - there is a ghost in her past that she has never exorcised. We know from the outset, from the beginning that had been pregnant in the past, but the trauma is so deep that she finds it difficult to connect with her mother or even return to Ireland. As the book progresses, gradually we learn more and about the different issues around Nell, and around the changes going on in Ireland as regards regarding the role of religion as Nell was at one time involved with a religious group called “The Hermanos”, and through which she met Martina. This was a group of evangelical women who were recruiting teenage girls to follow a Catholic lifestyle and the movement was, I think, worldwide. There were also discussions about the Amendment, same sex relationships and families. I liked following Nell's journey although sometimes, I just couldn't like her, but my favourite character is Dolores, a woman who has a quiet strength, a deep love and a good heart. A book about forgiveness really, I think, about forgiving yourself.

The Amendments is a story of a mother, Delores, and a daughter, Nell, trying to navigate life in rural Ireland as it dramatically changes from the 1970’s to present day. The Amendments of the title refer to the constitutional amendments proposed during this period to enshrine the right to life of a foetus vs the right to life of a mother. Delores was the first generation to live through a referendum on the issue and Nell lived through the repeal of the eighth amendment. Irrespective of the legal position at the time, both women navigate what it means to be a woman growing up in Ireland, figuring out what religion means to them, how to live independently, learn on their terms and how to love truthfully. It is a beautiful, emotional read.