Well, This Is Awkward by Esther Walker

A child-free woman sets her personal ambitions aside in order to take care of a sibling’s child. This is a familiar plot. Often the heroine emerges from the experience with a big promotion and a new lover. I was interested to find that Esther Walker takes a different approach in her debut novel Well, This Is Awkward.

When Mairéad’s sister Lenny is hospitalised after a freak pig-related incident, she is obliged to take responsibility for Sunny, her eleven-year-old niece. The successful publicist is horrified by the physical neglect the child has suffered, and shocked by her rudeness and odd behaviour. In my opinion it is too easy to label Sunny as neurodivergent. I think the child is trying to make sense of the chaos surrounding her. There are worse ways of handling a crisis than obsessive reading.

Mairéad assumes that her mother, political activist Helen, will take in her only grandchild. Realising that Helen only cares about her shifting troupe of lodgers, she approaches her own friendship group for support. This takes them to a holiday village in Devon, where Sunny makes a friend and learns to socialise within a community. At first, I saw this part of the story as an upmarket version of ‘what I did on my holidays’. On reflection, I can see that it also demonstrates Sunny’s steep learning curve.

After Lenny abandons her daughter, Mairéad tries to adapt to the off-grid rural life Sunny loves. This is my favourite part of the novel, because it is gritty and factual, as well as being realistic about the effect on Mairéad’s mental health. The conclusion is a little disappointing, because it is not clear what comes next for the pair. However, aunt and niece have several options to choose from, and the future looks bright.

I was given a copy of this book in return for an honest review.