Motherhood rears its head, too, as Aisling and her friends each try to figure out how they might engage with the narrow template of job-marriage-children that women in their 30s are often faced with. Mercifully, the Aisling series gives us many nonjudgmental and alternative options. The message remains an empowering one: be yourself, find your joy, and the other stuff will find you. When a week in Tenerife with John doesn’t end with the expected engagement, Aisling calls a halt to things and soon she has surprised herself and everyone else by agreeing to move into a three-bed in Portobello with stylish Sadhbh from HR and her friend, the mysterious Elaine. All that fear, silence, secrecy and toxic shame [in Ireland] impacts in countless different ways on the mental health of the woman affected. I feel a little sting of jealousy watching everyone crowd around Denise. John and I have actually been going out eight months longer than she and Liam, and they got engaged two years ago. Meanwhile, we’re not even living together.

I've always had a soft spot for Irish authors who write the type of books which are funny and sad at the same time. I swear I read them in an Irish accent in my head as they're not nearly as good in my native Scots! Aisling spends two nights a week at her boyfriend John’s. He’s from down home and was kiss number seventeen at her twenty-first. McLysaght and Breen say they hope the book brings comfort to readers after a difficult year, though the book is (thankfully) set in a Covid-free universe. There's a theme of romance in this, but it's not a romantic story, more a coming of age story which disappointed me a bit if I'm honest. The end kind of came up from nowhere and ends were left loose which isn't my thing, but still, a good read.And Sarah was brilliant in that and was able to take over and say we can just say we want to take a year off and we were in a position to be able to do that and that is amazing like. Aisling goes out every Saturday night with her best friend Majella, who is a bit of a hames (she’s lost two phones already this year – Aisling has never lost a phone). John’s driving me mad.” The words fall out of my mouth accidentally. “He said that ourselves getting married any time in the near future was a bit of a far-fetched idea.” Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling was released last year and has already found a place in common parlance and Irish culture. Even if they don't know the Aisling of the novel, they certainly know an Aisling. We all do in Ireland. If you don't know an Aisling, it is because you are an Aisling. She's from outside Dublin and goes "down home" at weekends, is going steady with a long-term boyfriend from her hometown and walks to work in trainers (to get her steps in) while carrying her court shoes in a Brown Thomas bag.

I'm not an Aisling, but I'd like to be." This statement is hollered over the noise of a busy Dublin brunch spot as I sit with a group of women, all of whom have read Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen's novel Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling, and all of whom have a sense of ownership over the title character. As author John Boyne has said: "Aisling is the real Voice of Ireland. "The final Aisling book, Aisling Ever After, is an homage to all she’s been through. It details not only how far Aisling has come but, in a way, how far we’ve all come. We revisit themes from that first book with new and imperfect laws in place. We draw together all our favourite characters: Majella, Sadhbh, Mad Tom, Niamh from Across the Road and even Daddy, who we wouldn’t have killed off in the first book if we had known there were going to be four more. The final Aisling book, Aisling Ever After, is an homage to all she’s been through. It details not only how far Aisling has come but, in a way, how far we’ve all come.' Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling made me smile and laugh, and though she's odd in many ways, I really warmed to Aisling - seeing the world through her eyes is so entertaining, and left my hugely amused. Her observations on other people and their habits are brilliant. Some parts are ridiculous but that's all part of the fun, and there are some much more serious moments too - it's not all light and fluffy.

And we said listen, all the best things come to an end…and we said we’d rather go out on a high than to drag it along after us.” There was space there for me to do that. So we did that twice, we delayed a book. And everyone around me was so brilliant. There are universal elements to Aisling that make her relatable to almost anyone, anywhere, but she is written through a uniquely Irish lexicon – she is the Irish mammy so many of us have and are, and also the Irish daughter, the fish-out-of-water country girl in the big smoke, the young woman simultaneously navigating independence and her desire for a traditional relationship, the Irish person ensconced in a tight community in which they legitimately feel a sense of belonging. Living in the Big Apple feels like a movie, especially when Aisling finds her ex-boyfriend John on her doorstep,” she wrote.I arrive home to find Daddy asleep in front of GAA Beo, a fluffy ginger ball curled up on his lap. Technically the cat is Paul's, but since my younger brother's departure for Australia four months ago, Daddy and Tiger have forged a weird sort of bond, borne out of a fondness for the fire and a desire to avoid Mammy's incessant questions. He wakes up as I reach for the remote, even though I haven't made a sound. The synopsis reads: “With her café BallyGoBrunch flying and the door firmly closed on her relationship with John, an unexpected job offer sees Aisling boarding a business-class flight to New York in her best wrap dress and heels. As she finds her feet in the Big Apple, she throws herself into the dating game, grapples with ‘always-on’ work culture, forges and fights for new friendships, and brings her good wedges to a party in the Hamptons (much to Sadhbh’s dismay). At 12.31, we’re pulling out of the driveway, the atmosphere between us in the car a little warmer than in the diningroom, but there’s still a strange tension, hanging around like a ferocious smell. Meanwhile Emer gushed: “We’re giving our girl the best send-off possible.” Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen Pic: VIPIreland We first meet Aisling as she’s attending a wedding with her boyfriend John, from a neighbouring rival village, and wistfully wondering when it’ll be her turn to get hitched and build a “McMansion” on the bit of land her dad has set aside for her.