Stations

by Louise Kennedy

In 1982, Róisín and Red meet as teenagers in their hometown in Ireland. Red's reputation for trouble might precede him, but Róisín finds in him an intelligent and funny – if unlikely – friend. When a brush with the law pushes Red into a corner, he escapes their town and his family for good to start a new life in England.

As the years pass, they grow up and apart. Despite Red's particular gift for disappearing, they remain tethered to one another, a fragile thread holding their once fierce friendship together. When Róisín arrives in London to spend Christmas with her estranged father, she finds herself swept up once more into Red's storm. Róisín longs for the closeness they once had, but Red continues to travel away from her – and as the past weighs on the present, Róisín wonders if she'll ever reach Red where he is.

Stations is a devastating story of love and friendship, and the choices we blithely make when we are young, unaware that the consequences will reverberate throughout our lives.

Genres: Fiction, Ireland, Literary Fiction, Irish Literature, Historical Fiction, Adult, Contemporary

304 pages, Hardcover

First published September 24, 2026

About the author

Louise Kennedy grew up near Belfast. Trespasses is her first novel. She is also the author of a collection of short stories, The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac. She has written for The Guardian, The Irish Times, and BBC Radio 4. Before becoming a writer, she worked as a chef for almost thirty years. She lives in Sligo, Ireland

Reviews

[switterbug (Betsey)]

“And so they went on, throwing out truths without eye contact, the words so powerful neither of them could bear to behold their effect.”

Let this Irish novel germinate while you read. Stations is not meant to fill in a space between books, or as a propulsive plot (although the last 1/3 of the book just about destroyed me!). Kennedy’s world-building here is unflinching, infallible, and formidable. All those Fs in words! There are no straw characters or phony incidents. It’s so credibly authentic that I would have believed it as a memoir. This is the story, primarily, of Róisín McCaffrey and Red Camelin, which starts in the early 1980s and ends in 2007. Is it a love story? One of friendship? It is both, plus a story of community, isolation, grief, addiction, identity, family, found family, and a few unmentionables.

In a small town in Ireland (closest big city is Dublin), Róisín and Red meet in school, around age fifteen. Both outcasts, although Red is from a wealthy and influential family. However, it is obvious he doesn’t like to go home, and spends a lot of time staying with Róisín and Una (Róisín’s divorced mother) at their somewhat squalid but also homey home. Red is an attentive listener, and he will happily indulge Róisín. But he is circumspect, if not silent, about his own life. He may speak in generalizations, but Róisín repeatedly and unsuccessfully presses him to share more, to trust her with his guarded secrets.

Years pass, Róisín goes to college for a while, and Red takes off for the wilds, but they circle around and find each other. During this era, moving to London can put a chip on your Irish shoulder, but they both do that independently and end up squatting in a London building with several others. Red is still emotionally unreachable. Róisín remains besotted. “Sometimes she was so comfortable in his company she forgot herself, farting, mumbling aloud then, realizing he was there, feeling astonished to see him. Other times...it was as though a crackle of lightning was going between them, like God’s finger giving life to Adam in pictures she had seen from the Sistine Chapel.” Can these characters grow? One thing I learned young—wherever you go, there you are.

Conor, Róisín’s father, is an immature man and alcoholic with a new wife and a baby daughter, also in London. Róisín has a reason to visit now, to be with her sister, Mary. Family dynamics steer the choices that Róisín makes. The narrative grows outward, to the Irish diaspora in London, and sometimes inward again, almost claustrophobic. The prose is spot-on and restrained, a lot the reader can suss in the silent spaces. All characters have blind spots, some will leave you in pieces.

It’s a moving portrait of a complex and highly developed cast, foremost about Róisín and Red and the community that surrounds them. It unspools with delicacy-- but raw, too, a bittersweet finale-- no promises, and a twist of hope.

Thank you to Riverhead for sending me a copy for early review. I'm still waiting to exhale!

[Maureen]

4.5 rounded to 5 stars
Trespasses is a favorite book of mine. I just love reading books by Irish authors.
This book transports you to Ireland and London from 1982 to 2007. It is a beautiful story of relationships, love, loss and addiction, and decisions that were made. Second guesses that maybe would have changed things.

It is character driven, and written with raw prose that may not be for everyone. An emotional heartbreaking story, with an unexpected ending that I just loved.

Roisin McCaffrey is a newcomer to Kildare as she recently moved from Northern Ireland. She doesn’t have many friends and agrees to deliver letters from Tina Doyle, to her boyfriend Redmond Camelin.

Roisin and Red become friends, but drift apart when Red’s father banishes him from his home.
He leaves Ireland for London.
They reconnect again after Roisin visits her estranged father in London
She finds Red living in a squat house in London under deplorable conditions. She finds a different Red that she has known in the.past. He is a troubled soul and their lives disconnect again.
They lose touch for many years and Roisin goes on a quest to find him.
This is an emotional read that you will not soon forget.
Thank you to NetGalley and Riverhead Books for this advanced readers copy.

[Ross]

ugh yes louise kennedy has done it again ⭐️

[Tilde]

I feel like I’ve been shot nine times (compliment)

[Kate O'Shea]

Louise Kennedy has produced another beautiful but unflinchingly real story with Stations. Not quite a love story but certainly one of enduring friendship. Róisin McCaffrey meets Red (Redmond) Camelin for the first time when she becomes a message carrier for Tina Doyle, whose father does not approve of Red as a boyfriend.

The two immediately bond and the friendship develops as Red's relationship with his violent father and ineffectual mother breaks down. Roisin wishes for so much more but has to settle for friendship when Red leaves Ireland.

Years later they reconnect in London. But Roisin is no closer to pinning Red down. All she can do is be his friend and try to save him from his worst excesses.

Stations is another beautiful but difficult book by Louise Kennedy. She does not sugarcoat anything, seeing no need to provide happy endings which so rarely happen in real life.

Both Roisin and Red are deeply flawed characters but they are both very likeable and it is hard not to root for them even at their most self-destructive. My favourite characters were, however, Mary who doesn't let Roisin get away with her bad behaviour and Barry who tries so hard.

A stunning book that I'd highly recommend. Louise Kennedy hasn't put a sentence wrong yet. I very much look forward to whatrever comes next.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the digital review copy. Very much appreciated.

[Chris]

A beautiful, sad and heartbreaking story of friendship, love and trauma that feels very authentic. The storytelling totally absorbed me and I loved the Irishness of this novel; the language, the swearing, the sense of identity. Highly recommended!
TmThank you Bloomsbury and Netgalley UK for the ARC.

[suzannah ♡]

4.5!!!

[nell]

edit: this feels a pretty fair review to me, and i have specified where i received the advance copy from. curious that goodreads continues to delete my rating!

i was tempted to give this three, at first, but i think that was partly my affection for louise kennedy, whose previous novel, trespasses, i unexpectedly loved. but really there was so much wrong with this, i can't write the review i'm about to write and justify a three. from start to finish, i was utterly unconvinced by this.

i am ready to move past this kind of fiction (and i am ready for publishers to do the same). i'm allowed to say that because ive read every single incarnation of this book, this particular brand of working-class contemporary litfic. ive read juno loves, ive read true love by paddy crewe, ive read only here, only now, ive read everything by douglas stuart. i have been the target audience for this stuff, ive been sat at the end of the conveyer belt with my mouth wide open. i know it so well i knew every single beat of this from its initial pages, and at no point did it diverge. the friendship in youth, the smart-arse kids, the small town, the one without money and the one with it, but resentful of it, distanced from their family. the murky middle period, the bit where at least one of them ends up in an unrealistic literature-adjacent job with an unrealistic bit of london real estate . even if this was the best iteration of this book i had read, id be tired of it. it was nowhere near the best. i love that working-class stories are being published but its starting to feel a bit icky, and a bit twee, that its the same story thats allowed to be told. im ready to start seeing some more innovation in this subgenre.

this just reeked of a sophomore novel that couldn't find a point to its existence beyond the need to follow-up a brilliant and commercially-successful debut. i felt like i could see the contract hovering beneath the text like i was reading a palimpsest. it said nothing, achieved nothing; i was so unconvinced by its long cast of cliched characters, i was so put off by a protagonist who wasn't interesting, underwent no arc, was still behaving like a fourteen year old in that third act that dragged on for far too long. everyone in this book who you are meant to dislike is written with so little generosity that it cannot be misunderstood what kennedy needs you to think about these characters; no one is allowed to surprise you, or be nuanced, theres a set of evil people, theres a set of posh people who are evil by virtue of their poshness and theres a set of hardscrabble kids we're supposed to root for who just failed to stir anything in me. i have a particular resistant to liking characters it feels the author is insisting too hard that i like. barry was an egregious case of this, utterly predictable and unconvincing in his return as the Perfect, Tortured Man. kennedy is so much better than this.

at one point, one of the characters says, "what does that make me, a whingeing trauma junkie?". that is all any of these characters are, that is all kennedy allows them to be. its a long plod of ever more sensational hardships (sensational not because theyre unrealistic, because people dont face these things or have lives like this, but because kennedy reduces their lives entirely to these cliched sufferings) and people talking the way no one has ever talked, the epidemic of therapy speak dialogue reaching even into upmarket high-falutin prize-winning fiction. for a novel that hinges on missed moments, miscommunications, repression, these characters cannot stop pouring their hearts out to each other, every moment is mined for sentimentality until theres nothing left. it just felt so horribly TWEE.

i was really anticipating this, hence why i begged for a proof. kennedy is a fantastic writer and i believe she will write more fantastic books, but this wasnt one; it was an unremarkable contribution to a tired, predictable, extremely specific niche of working-class fiction that i think its high time we all move on from. there are so many more stories to tell!!! we have so much more to offer than this!!!

[róis]

Amazing amazing amazing

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

Northern Irish born, Irish based author Louise Kennedy’s debut novel “Trespasses” was featured on the 2022 version of the always prize-prescient Observer Best 10 Debut Novelist feature and went on to be: shortlisted for the inaugural 2022 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and the 2023 Women’s Prize, while winning the 2022 Irish Book of the year, the 2023 British Book Award for Debut Fiction (a prize which rewards sales success and campaign alongside literary merit) and the 2023 McKitterick Prize (for best debut novel for an author over 40).
 
Set in 1975 Northern Ireland, its main protagonist is a mid-20s primary school teacher from a lower-middle class Catholic family who falls for a much older, married, Protestant barrister with outspoken views on Civil Rights; the novel capturing brilliantly a bleak portrait of a particular place and time in history in what was a gritty and uncompromising read.
 
This her second novel’s starting point is actually a character from her a story “Belladonna” in her short story collection “The End of the World is a Cul de Sac” – Róisín who when we first encounter her in 1982 as a teenager has already moved moved with her Catholic family South (her father still reaping the aftermath of his brief service in the RUC having already left the family home) and is something of an outcast for her accent and for the fellow Catholics aversion to the Troubles (much of this detail  is part autobiographical – Kennedy too having left the North with her family aged 12 in 1979 – although more due to attacks on the family bar).
 
Initially due to a role as a subservient messenger for love girls from the alpha-girl, she spends time with Red – from a well off middle-class family, but notorious for his behaviour and as Red is increasingly estranged from his own family Roisin’s home (complete with a middle aged and old fashioned teacher her mother is dating to her horror) becomes more of his home – before a brush with the law exiles Red to London.
 
There in late 1984 – estranged from her own family by first her father’s new baby and then her mother’s attempts to annul the marriage (effectively making Róisín redundant) she joins him in his squat – where she realises he is a small time soft drug dealer.
 
And from there the novel plays out with other characters becoming more crucial – not least Barry, squat mate of Red, brother to Róisín’s schooldays bête noire and eventually Róisín’s lover; and her father’s new partner (and mother to Róisín’s step-sister) Lynne.
 
At one stage the Red/ Róisín interaction – a will they/won’t they thing between Irish friends from different social classes but whose relative status of privilege changes over time seemed like the novel might be a kind of Sally Rooney novel (but with the action moved from Trinity to London), but far from it. 
 
In fact this is as gritty and uncompromising as Kennedy’s debut as increasingly Red’s drug problems (it soon becomes clear he is a user as well as a dealer, and the drugs quickly move from soft to hard) and her father’s struggle with alcohol and self-esteem become dominant alongside a fairly grim picture of life in London (where Kennedy too lived for much of the 1980s).  
 
And things get darker as the reasons behind her father’s behaviour and more so the reason for Red’s addiction and for his breach with his family become the dominant themes.  
 
And this culminates in a memorably difficult encounter between Róisín and Red at Paddington station in 1989, followed by her looking for him in 2007 and an impressively un-neat ending.
 
Overall like her debut this felt a little too grim for my tastes and here, unlike her debut, I struggled to really get a feel for the characters and their stories – but that debut won the author many fans as well as prize nominations and I expect the same here .
 
My thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley

[Georgina Reads_Eats_Explores]

One chapter into Stations and I was already completely smitten.

After loving Trespasses, I went into Louise Kennedy’s second novel with very high expectations, and thankfully they were more than met. Kennedy has such a distinctive way of writing about people: spare, unsentimental and incredibly observant, yet somehow still full of warmth. She can create an entire emotional world with just a few carefully chosen details.

Stations begins in 1980s Ireland, where Róisín and Red form an unlikely friendship as teenagers. Róisín is the sensible, good-girl type, struggling in her own way with school and a complicated family life, while Red already carries the reputation of being trouble. Their friendship begins almost by accident, but it quickly becomes clear that they understand something in one another that other people do not.

From there, the novel moves between Ireland and London, following the pair through different stages of their lives and eventually returning to them many years later. What Kennedy does so well is show how decisions made when we are very young, often without fully understanding their consequences, can reverberate through decades.

There is something incredibly tangible about her writing. At times I genuinely felt as though I were sitting beside Róisín and Red by the river, standing in a dingy London squat, or watching from a railway platform as one life moved further away from another. Kennedy captures not only place but atmosphere: 1980s Ireland, the rough edges of London in the 80s and 90s, family homes, pubs, streets and all the small, ordinary spaces where life quietly changes direction.

I also really appreciated the slight vagueness that sometimes surrounds events. Life rarely makes perfect sense while we are living it, and Kennedy does not over-explain her characters or force every experience into a neat conclusion. People make bad decisions, fail each other, love one another imperfectly and sometimes simply disappear. That messiness makes the novel feel all the more truthful.

There are difficult themes here, including addiction, alcoholism, abuse, loneliness and grief, and watching Red repeatedly drift beyond Róisín’s reach is heartbreaking. Yet I would not describe Stations as bleak. There is humour, tenderness and an enormous amount of love throughout, even when that love is unable to fix what is broken.

Róisín and Red are both wonderfully drawn characters. I spent much of the novel wanting to reach into the pages and give the pair of them a hug. Their relationship is complicated, sometimes frustrating and often painful, but that is exactly what makes it so compelling. Kennedy understands that some of the most important relationships in our lives are not easily labelled. Some people pass through briefly, some remain physically present, and others stay threaded through us long after they are gone.

The title feels increasingly poignant as the novel unfolds. These different places, moments and stages of life become stations in themselves, points at which people meet, separate, wait, move on or occasionally find their way back to one another.

This is a beautifully written, quietly devastating novel about friendship, love, family and the long shadow of the choices we make when we are young. It is gritty and unvarnished without ever losing its humanity.

I could already see Stations translating wonderfully to the screen while I was reading, and I would be very surprised if it does not become every bit as widely discussed as Trespasses.

Irish literature fans will not be disappointed. Louise Kennedy has done it again.

Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy. All opinions my own.

[Mia Meaney]

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read the arc for this book.
The story follows the characters of Róison and Red who become friends in their childhood and evolves over time.
The story focuses on the obstacles and unexpected paths life takes you on. The writing and description is very well done. However there was quite a few times I felt lost in the story with the time jumps and the shift from scene to scene and following along with the plot.
One thing I appreciated as an interesting choice was how the book didn’t follow in any route I could have expected, especially the ending which left it up for interpretation.
It tells the story of how friendships come and go and the people who come back into your life after years apart.
The main themes of the book are friendship, love, life choices, coming of age and loyalty.
Spoiler warning !!!! :
As much as the ending being left open for interpretation is interesting I would have enjoyed some form of closure on what happened in terms of Ró searching for Red and what happened to him.

[Jim]

I quite enjoyed Kennedy's 'Trespasses', and was excited to see what she would follow it up with. Using a short story character as the basis for a novel isn't always a good choice, and compared to her debut, this has the feel of "written before that one, but held off publishing until", if that is even a literary plan. This reads as semi-autofictional, filled out with large swaths of utterly stereotypical Irish class identification. Not saying it isn't (or couldn't be?) true to life, but for fiction it reads too true to life. Zero nuance, no variation on the down-and-out thematic, with appropriate everything assuredly included, ad nauseam. Not sure what I expected but this wasn't enjoyable at all. The writing is skillful, clear and spartan prose, a bit dialogue-heavy (personal pet peeve), but not literary drivel, skill-wise. Just a bland, forgettable piece of plotting that leaves no marks at all. Great cover art.

[Sarah (menace mode)]

On GOD nobody writes heartbreak like the Irish. Sometimes you discover too late that the way you loved someone was never how they needed to be loved, and the only thing you can do is hope against hope they’ve found it in someone or something else. There’s 10000 different times you want to grab Roisin or Red’s face and scream into it but you know they’re just going to make the same mistakes anyways. Big if you want to microdose the feeling of reading Normal People for the first time again.

[Lindsey Leitera]

When I first read Kennedy’s much-lauded debut novel, Trespasses, in 2023, it became an all-time favorite. One of those books you just keep thinking about, as the months and years go by. It’s hard not to compare Stations to its predecessor. While Kennedy isn’t retreading the same ground, there are themes, stylistic elements, and character beats that rhyme. There’s the same “contaminated intimacy”: this time, the relationship is doomed not by sectarian violence, but by addiction. There’s the same nuanced exploration of shame: how it feels to “betray” your country, family, and self ("betray" in scare-quotes because a lot of the dramatic tension comes from the disparity between how the narrator feels about herself and how the audience perceives her actions).

Overall, I enjoyed this quite a bit. Well, “enjoyed” isn’t the right word… Stations is a grim tale, featuring prickly characters, with no easy answers or catharsis on offer for readers. Róisín in particular is a psychologically static character throughout. As the novel goes on, the years pass, and we see everyone around her evolve, sometimes dramatically -- several supporting characters are almost unrecognizable from their earlier iterations when we meet them again later. But even as Róisín’s circumstances change, she remains stuck in the same loop of self-hatred and guilt we witnessed in her adolescence. I found that choice quite interesting and worth exploring, even if it makes the ending feel unresolved or unsatisfying.

[Jo]

4.5
Gritty Irish realism set in Ireland and England. I look forward to reading the book, but the audible is excellent read by one of the best Irish female narrators. For me it was an authentic portrayal of rough London living and the ‘fags, booze, drugs and sex’ pre AIDS culture of that time. I also enjoy so called unlikable characters. Unfortunately I think this will not suit most reading groups. I hope it’s nominated for the women’s prize.

[Becca]

I was lucky enough to get a proof copy of this book and I’m glad I was able to read it early. It was so moving throughout the book as we follow Ró & Reds story and it pulled at my heartstrings for sure.
4.5⭐️

[Katharina Christenson]

Louise Kennedy up there with one of my new fave writers. Devastating and real and so fucking SAD!

[macy]

Louise Kennedy when i catch you….. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT ENDING…… 4.5. tears down my face.

[Emily Kubincanek]

ARC thanks to Edelweiss plus

[Sue]

A perfect novel.

[Jamad]

I found the first half of Stations much more compelling than the second. I was quickly drawn into the friendship between Róisín and Red, and the novel does an excellent job of capturing the pull of home, the excitement of London in the 1980s, and the complicated ways people become entwined in each other’s lives.

As the years passed, though, my interest gradually began to fade. I found myself increasingly fed up with Red’s immature, self-destructive behaviour. I appreciate that this was very much the point of his character, but after a while I found him more frustrating than engaging, and I became less interested in where his story was heading.

I also felt the novel could have done with a stronger edit. That’s always a sign for me that I’m starting to lose interest in a book. There were sections that felt as though they could have been tightened, and the pacing lost some of the momentum that had made the opening so absorbing.

Kennedy writes beautifully, with a keen eye for relationships and the lasting effects people have on one another. There is plenty to enjoy here, but for me the novel never quite recaptured the strength of its opening chapters.

[Josie]

I received an advanced copy of Stations by Louise Kennedy through NetGalley from Riverhead, and I was thrilled to discover just how brilliant this book is.
Kennedy has done something particularly clever here: she is telling two stories at once. On the surface, we have the intimate, up-close story of Roisin and Red—their lives, relationships, choices, and struggles. But beneath that is the much larger story of trauma, prejudice, displacement, and the lasting toll of immigration on the Irish who made the difficult decision to leave home for Great Britain. Although the novel is set in the 1980s, its themes reach far beyond that decade, encompassing the experiences and wounds of an entire generation.
One detail that stayed with me was Roisin's name itself. Even its pronunciation seems to shift depending on where she is and who is saying it—"Rawsheen" in one place, "Rowsheen" in another. It is such a small thing, but it felt symbolic of something much larger: what happens to a person's identity when they leave home and try to make a life somewhere else. For Irish people who emigrated to England, there could be a constant negotiation between where they came from and the culture they were now living in. Even something as fundamental as your own name could be altered, mispronounced, or reshaped by the people around you. I found myself thinking about how easily those small compromises can accumulate, and how the experience of emigration can leave someone feeling caught between two places—Irish, but no longer entirely at home in Ireland; living in England, but never completely belonging there either. Kennedy captures that sense of displacement in a way that feels both deeply personal and much larger than Roisin herself.
I am roughly the same age as the main characters, and that made the story feel especially personal to me. While I didn't experience the drug and alcohol scene that is part of their world, I could absolutely relate to the era and the feeling of being young during a time when everything seemed to be changing. In the United States, this was the era of divorce, latchkey kids, MTV, music as a cultural force, and London seeming like the most exciting place on earth. Kennedy captures that sense of time and possibility while also showing us the darker realities underneath it.
What really makes Stations work, though, is the characters. You become deeply invested in them. Roisin is clearly the heart of the novel, and while I occasionally found her anger toward almost everything a little exhausting, I understood where it came from. Her frustrations, disappointments, and vulnerabilities feel authentic, and Kennedy never reduces her to an easy or predictable character.
And then there is Barry.
By the end of the book, Barry had unexpectedly become my favorite character. He is one of those characters who grows on you, and I found myself thinking about him long after I finished reading. In fact, there were moments when I found myself wondering what happens to these people after the final page. Kennedy has created characters with lives that feel so real that it almost seems as though there could be a sequel waiting somewhere down the road.
What I especially admired about Stations is the way Kennedy balances the deeply personal with the historical and political without allowing either to overwhelm the other. The individual stories matter, but so does the larger story of a people carrying the weight of prejudice, displacement, memory, and belonging. The result is a novel that is both intimate and expansive.
Stations is the kind of book that stays with you. It made me think about a particular time and place, but also about how the experiences of one generation can echo into the lives of those who come after it. Louise Kennedy has written a powerful, beautifully observed novel filled with complicated people, complicated choices, and a great deal of heart.
Five stars from me. This is definitely a book I will be recommending, and my library will absolutely be purchasing a copy. I can already see myself recommending it to readers who love character-driven historical fiction, stories about immigration and identity, and novels that give you plenty to think about after you've turned the final page.
I highly recommend Stations.

[LLJ]

My sincere gratitude to #RiverheadBooks, #NetGalley, and to #LouiseKennedy for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy of #Stations which is set for publication in the US on 11/3/2026. I became an instant fan of this author after reading #Trespasses and just learned that it was her debut novel (following a short story collection that is now on my radar) and Stations is her second novel. Louise Kennedy is an outstanding storyteller and scenes from her debut are still etched in my memory. That is always one of the clearest signs of great writing in my experience. That said, I think I enjoyed this new novel even more.

Stations centers primarily on Róisín McCaffrey, a young woman who is navigating the end of high school in the early 1980s. She is immediately depicted as an outsider (moving to Kildare from Northern Ireland and living with a single mother). She is at the mercy of cliques of popular girls (especially Tina Boyle who maintains a presence throughout the novel). As the book begins she is introduced to Red, after agreeing to the role of go-between carrying some form of romantic correspondence between Tina and Red. The opening scene in which Róisín and Red trade banter, (and intelligent banter at that) is one of the most charming I've encountered and immediately pulled me into the story. Just that quickly, I was invested in both of these characters and rooting for them.

Róisín lives with her single mother and has been estranged from her father, Conor, who has since remarried and remains a broken, addicted, and enigmatic character throughout the book. Conor is also given poignant moments of deep heart and compassion and Kennedy's gift for making even the most unlikeable characters more human and empathetic which is such a gift and a true talent.

We learn, fairly early, that Red has been kicked out of his home and that dark secrets lie behind the walls of his seemingly well-off family (and beyond the walls which he has constructed around himself). Róisín and Red share an instant bond and a deep friendship is formed which intermittently crosses romantic lines and feelings and is darkened by drugs and emotional immaturity. The drift apart and back together throughout most of the novel as Róisín continues to grow and fail and fumble and shine. She ends up in a Pimlico squat with Red and other young people (most memorably Tina Boyle's brother, Barry - carrying on like adults - which was reminiscent of Trainspotting without quite as many drugs. Their are relationships which form and sputter out, the presence of her fairly stable friend Sinead, who remains a steady force in her life and (no spoilers) others who later enter her life via her father's remarriage. The books skips forward in small increments, for the most part, and does not for one moment lose momentum.

In the latter portion of the novel, we are transported to 2007 and the movement through time is seamless. I absolutely LOVED this novel and treasure this author. It is the painful evolution of a young woman filled with the hope of starting over, forgiveness, and never giving up - most importantly the long difficult journey in learning to love yourself. This message of being kind to oneself shines through and Róisín learns to love the people who matter most but keep hope and her big heart open for whatever may come - and anything is possible.

[Trevelyanwright]

Louise Kennedy’s novel builds very much on her first, Trespasses. That focused on the Troubles and a young woman who gets caught between the two sides of the sectarian conflict. This time around a young woman is caught between the social suffocation of a small town in the Ireland of the eighties and the opportunities of London. The 1980s, pre-Celtic Tiger and with Big Bang London Boom, was possibly the last time when the endless waves of Irish immigration landed in the capital in search of work.

We start in a small town outside Dublin, where teenage Roisin is attempting to fit in after an enforced family move from Belfast occasioned by the troubles. She is instantly drawn to Red, a brilliantly witty and charismatic son of a leading local family. Red has to leave town suddenly, and Roisin after her struggle to reconcile with her estranged father, ends up in a Pimlico squat with Red.

Over the next thirty years in chapters that are almost jump-cuts Roisin falls out and makes up with Red. She builds a career, he drifts increasingly off course. They meet up in pubs, clubs and street corners as the action moves between a perpetually shifting London and a static Ireland. The stations of the title - Camden Tube, Waterloo Coach Station, Holyhead Ferry Terminal are the places that connect and separate, and Kennedy is excellent on the precarity of payphones and letters in the pre-internet age: how people can just disappear.

Kennedy’s prose is as razer-sharp and claustrophobic as in Trespasses. If there’s an advance, it’s that she brings to life a vivid support cast. Tina Doyle, her school best friend and lifelong frenemy; Barry, Tina’s brother who ends up in the Pimlico squat before descending into the grip of addiction; husband Gavin who works so hard to understand and support her but can’t bridge the cultural gap. The relationship between Roisin, and her much younger sister Mary and stepmum Laura evolve brilliantly over the years.

There’s great pleasure in Kennedy’s evocation of eighties London. She has a great eye for the social energy of pubs and clubs, the downs of Sunday mornings, the aimless half-drunk wandering, and the way that whip-sharp repartee brings people together, but enables Roisin and Red to hold the world, and each other, at arms length.It’s the particular brilliance of this novel to put the characters who can connect and commit, can find their role in life, even eventually Barry, at the edges. At the centre, moving together and apart, are Roisin and Red, displaced from Ireland, not wholly at home in London, unable to fully settle into a life.

Kennedy offers no easy solution to the loneliness of Roisin or the deep damage that Red inflicts on himself. While not everything works - an upperclass character is more crudely drawn, and some unlikely property outcomes - this is an immensely satisfying and thought-provoking novel with some characters at their core that draw you in.

ARC provided by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

[Kristin Gleeson]

Thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury for a review copy of this book. A beautifully written book, crafted to create a feeling of a story unfolding seamlessly in front of the reader, easy yet so heartbreakingly real. A young Irish woman, Rósín strives through her life to make sense of her past and her relationship to the one person who dominated it from her teens onward, if only in her mind and her sense of self. This is a story that lingers on in the mind long after the book is finished. It’s haunting, poignant and tragic in some ways but ultimately provides a deep appreciation of what some people will do for the ones they love, even if they don’t love themselves. I found this book deeply moving, just like Kennedy’s prior book, Trespasses. Kennedy has a gift of weaving a narrative that is multi layered and thought provoking while at the same time so compelling, the story just steals the reader’s attention until it reaches its end.

It is the 1980s in Ireland. The first time Rósín met Red she was acting as a go-between for a mean girl, Tina from her school because Red was already too much of a notorious black sheep for any father to approve of. Rósín’s own father had long since made off to London initially for a job, but never to return, after the family had moved from the North because his stint with the RUC hadn’t worked out. In Red though, Rósín feels she’s met a friend, a friend who might be a kindred spirit, a person with whom she feels a soul deep connection that for her is romantic. So when Red turns up on her doorstep and asks to stay for a few days, she is delighted and her mother, charmed by his personality and manners, is too. Rósín feels their connection deepen and knows it’s only a matter of time before they will become a couple. Until her world is shattered and Red’s father has him banished from the town and Red takes off for London. The loss and devastation feels at his departure makes Rósín feel increasingly isolated, and when circumstances take her to London and eventually broken hearted to his door at a squat in a posh area of London she finds a Red that she’s not sure she recognises. In the weeks that turn into months she battles with herself and the deteriorating situation around her to understand what has changed and why. This desperation to understand fully all the situation and herself as well as Red haunts her for years and drives many of the decisions she makes.

The understanding and themes of the book are so subtly crafted and laid out in the book buried deep as the book allows us slowly to come to understand Red and the self destructive behaviours that both main characters show and also to understand what a beautiful person Red was underneath it all. The book is tragically Irish in its rendering and background and beautifully written in that manner to, joining ranks with some of the top Irish writers, I feel. This book will definitely be one of my top reads for the year.

[Marta Anna]

I've had a particularly interesting reading experience with this novel. While I devoured it in two days, I only understood how deeply it affected me after finishing it. In it, we're following Róisín from the time she's a misunderstood teenager in the '80s, until she somehow settles down in her forties. It's a long journey through complicated relationships, family dramas, and the search for one's place in the world. While she struggles to make sense of her life and to choose the right path for herself, she finds comfort in her friendship with Red, a boy from her hometown who later immigrates to London due to a difficult family situation. The novel focuses a lot on this relationship, which is deeply meaningful for both characters, even if it remains platonic until the very end. It is a heart-wrenching story about two people who cannot save each other, but who will mark each other's lives forever.
The novel is written in a deliberately blunt style of narration that I had to get used to at the very beginning. Kennedy doesn't overexplain her characters, nor their emotions or behaviour. She lets them do as they please, and as a reader, we're forced to accept them as they are, even if we don't have enough elements to truly understand them. The events of the story are chronological, but there are a lot of big time jumps, and therefore some time periods are never brought to light. It's something that disturbed me a little bit while reading, but I do understand it in retrospect - that's exactly how we remember our lives. Moreover, the novel is deeply rooted in a certain period of time (mostly the '80s and '90s) and place. The characters are unapologetically Irish, and while it adds some authenticity, it can complicate the reading experience for some readers due to various references or uses of language.
In the end, I have to admit that this novel doesn't exactly compare to the author's previous one (I absolutely adored Trespasses). However, it is its own work of fiction, and it's an interesting one at that. It made me feel a lot of emotions, and the ending left me heartbroken. Personally, I would have loved to delve deeper into the relationship between Róisín and Red, that's the main plot point that left me unsatisfied - I simply wanted more from it. Still, I can't wait for it to be published, since I would love to discuss it with other readers!

Thank you to NetGalley and Riverhead Books for the ARC of this novel.

[whatzoreads]

Getting deeply intertwined with someone before you’ve even developed a personality is so dangerous, and Stations clocks it perfectly.

Roisin and Red met as teenagers in 1980s Ireland and immediately locked in their “we are codependent for life” lore. Red fumbled so hard he had to flee to London just to become a ghost and hard-reset his life. Roisin eventually follows, but changing your location doesn’t delete your character history and packing up your life doesn’t mean you actually escaped the plot.
That specific part of Stations really hit different. It literally made me sick to my stomach that fake-out “fresh start” era. You can change postcodes and cosplay as new people, but the history, the class disparity, the shame always follows. You cannot escape yourself.

Kennedy really drags Roisin and Red’s choices; she doesn’t romanticise them. I respect how real she keeps it. She really says loving someone will NOT fix them. Sometimes “love” is just handcuffs keeping you stuck in a version of yourself you should’ve outgrown.

Her portrayal of the Irish community in London was a masterclass in writing diaspora trauma. It broke my heart. She captured that displacement perfectly. There is a distinct, heavy sadness in people who leave home chasing a new life, only to end up permanently suspended between two places. They can’t go back to who they used to be, but they never fully belong where they landed either. They are just culturally stranded. It’s a specific kind of grief I recognise firsthand in the older generations of my own family, which made the book hit entirely too close to home.

No melodrama allowed, Kennedy’s writing is dialled back, and she completely trusts the reader to fill in the blanks and silent spaces. The result is messy, agonising, and deeply human. This is a soul-shattering book about first love and exile. It really forces you to face the horrible truth that you can leave a place behind, but the trauma is still staying in your head rent-free.
Leaving gave them distance. It didn’t give them freedom.

Thank you @NetGalley @Bloomsbury for the advance copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.

This one is officially living rent-free in my mind permanently.

[Gabs]

3.5☆

i love literary fiction, irish authors, and a story that spans years, so this was right up my alley.

stations begins with ró and red’s initial friendship in a small town in ireland, and follows them to london in the late eighties/early nineties. what shines through is kennedy’s descriptive writing, it never feels like she’s ‘ telling rather than showing’ and i could vividly picture every setting and could sketch the squat from memory.

i liked the direction the story took, and the ending. their were a few reasons i didn’t rate it higher. the first being the central friendship. as it’s the foundation of the novel, i would have liked a stronger sense of their emotional connection, besides circumstance.

*the smallest spoilers below that aren’t really spoilers but i’m being extra cautious as this book isn’t out yet*



secondly - and why i took a while to rate this - is because this book is too ‘irish’. i know that sounds funny, especially considering my first sentence of this review, but it leans so heavily relies into the aesthetics of irishness that it made me think the author was afraid you would forget the characters were irish. examples include; crying about an irish artist’s immigration book, shamrock tattoos, celtic wedding bands (all things i actually like), planning to visit the grave of an irish character in march to leave shamrocks (st patrick’s day - get it?), the phrase, “insanely cool for an irish mammy,” and despite, living in london, seemingly only reading the irish times.

one one hand, it makes sense for irish characters who were living in england during the 80s and 90s, during significant anti-irish sentiment, to latch onto their culture and each other, given the political climate. on the other hand, it also seems to be written as “irish for the international audience”. i havn’t read trespasses yet but wonder if the international success of that influenced this approach.

overall, i liked it, i’m excited for when it’s released so i can discuss it with my friends, and as a result, kennedy’s other book is creeping up my tbr.

[ria]

"Stations" tells the story of the tumultuous friendship between Róisín and Red, all the way from their high-school days in a small Irish town in the 1980s, up until they both end up in London. A heavy read at times, "Stations" lingers a lot in the almosts of life, in the things we didn't notice or ignored because we weren't ready to face them, in the regrets and the endless questions that come with it. Louise Kennedy's writing is sparse, but creates a very tangible, vivid universe; at times I felt like I was present in all those places that Róisín and Red find themselves in. I also really appreciated the slight vagueness of happenings, which felt real and universal, after all life isn't so easy to make sense of or understand in the moment.

All this being said, I have to say I wish I'd liked this better. Maybe I went into it with different expectations. My main gripe is, I think, the pacing. The first part of this felt more substantial and compelling in a way, while the second and third parts kind of linger and fizzle out a little too much for my taste. The snapshot style we got over the course of some years didn't really help, it held me back from getting a good grasp of these characters, which brings me to my second issue. While I understood Róisín's choices and reactions, I also felt like I was kept at bay in some way from her inner life, which makes little sense as this is told from her perspective. She holds back a lot from the others, but it feels like she holds back a lot as a narrator; there always felt like there was a wall keeping me from really getting a good grasp of her. I understand that this might be more enjoyable to some readers, but not to me.

All this being said, I think I enjoyed the parts with Róisín and her mother, Una, the most - the constant back and forth, the anger and the hurt and confusion and the forgiveness and love. I was also really satisfied with the ending, and thought it was very fitting to the overall story, although I get that it might not be to everyone's taste.

Thank you Bloomsbury and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy!