Another character was a blogger who was extremely badly written. Couldn't decide who she was from one chapter to the next. Was she happy being childless or not? I was confused. Christine : That’s right, you tell him! Listen, soon-to-be-trampled author-boy, in the first part of your opus you have your extreme-horror slaughterhouse fun with us cows, and then in the second part, you turn us into a fatuous allegory about fascism, where once again we play the mindless puppets. At every turn you debovinise us! We’re just your fodder! This, to me, is not your average extreme horror novel. There’s so much depth here. It’s a book about abuse, absence of love, and what happens when a person is driven to the point of losing their sanity. The main character, Stephen, wants a normal, happy life. To say he was abused by his mother is an understatement and my heart broke for him. He reaches a point where he’ll do anything to get that happy life and that’s when the madness that this book is famous for begins.

So, the book opens with Steven starting his first day at work, yup, you guessed it...he is working at the SLAUGHTERHOUSE!! Ahhhh....hah....."Send in the COWS" (clowns? cows?) enormously disturbing and transcendently clever, Cows, a literally eviscerating portrait of life among the British lower classes, is revered internationally as one of the most daring English-language novels of the past few decades." Feminism? What it means to me is years of being part of an organisation called Business and Professional Women. It was founded years ago and the main aim was to ensure that women coming into the workplace were given equal rights, equal pay and respect and dignity. Unfortunately, it seems that the modern feminist thinks differently. This book using Cam’s voice through her blogs just actually made me want to weep because it makes women just look nasty. This is such a smart and intense book. I hope they make it into a TV mini-series. I feel like it would appeal to the same sorts of audiences who enjoyed Big Little Lies. The Farmer's Son is a memoir of roughly four months in the life of John Connell, the eponymous son, returned to live on his family's farm in Longford after several years in Australia and Canada. Recovering from a bout of depression that had led to the end of a relationship, Connell tends to the cattle and sheep, squabbles with his father, takes up running, and broods.This story focusses on three very different women who are initially unconnected, but gradually become a part of each other’s lives due to events that in many ways are out of their control. The writing is simple and clear, and when the author writes about the care of the animals (the cows and sheep) it really sings. The book gives a great sense of the grueling, if poetic, daily toil of farming, the way farmers (especially in this birthing season) have to constantly be on the lookout for the life around them, alert to the slightest signs of disease, watchful for pregnancy, and you follow him as he makes the right call sometimes, and the wrong call others. (People interested in veterinary care would also enjoy this.)

The book explores women's sexuality and the right to explore it without comment. It also explores themes of trolling, how women are judged by others and perceived in the media, and the importance of female friendships, as well as women's right to choices over their own fertility and reproduction. These are all themes I think need exploring, whether in fiction or non-fiction, and which interest me. However, I did find O'Porter's book, whilst wishing to banish stereotypes, at times felt like the characters were actually stereotypes themselves. We have the usual guilt of the working mother; the disapproval of parents of the women's lifestyles; and the men in the story also felt slightly one-dimensional. I felt the characters and situations slightly unbelievable and difficult to connect with.That’s right. That’s what all the other little girls will do, so we should do something different, right?’ It covers January to June, which is calving season. The author documents these couple of months and the ups and downs that come with them for farmers. He balances the monotony of daily farm life with personal stories about his relationship with his father, how important neighbours are in rural Ireland, the connections farmers make with animals, how climate change and the Department affect farming. There are also stories about the history of cows and how important they are in legends and lore.