The continuing adventures of Caithleen and Baba, two country Irish girls negotiating their way through life in Dublin and getting to grips with womanhood. Baba takes something of a side step in this book as it's much more about Caithleen's experiences. And because of this, although Baba is still very much Baba, I didn't feel the full hit of her awfulness as I did in the first book.

Caithleen, still uncertain and full of romantic ideals, meets a guy in his thirties - an absolute nightmare for a Catholic. He is a protestant, a divorcee (it's coming) with a child with the ex-wife. What a disaster. And his father was a foreigner. It's a tough start for a potential relationship. Especially when Caithleen is only just 20, incredibly naive and insecure and hasn't really figured out who she is yet. Still, they get involved, and after an anonymous letter is sent to her father telling him about the kind of man Eugene is (including a few lies such as that he's giving Caithleen dope), the drunkard father comes to Dublin to "rescue" his daughter and take her home. She escapes, so he gathers a drunken, biogoted mob to come and deal with the couple. It's really horrific just how narrow minded and controlling people are in this book. Caithleen's situation is an utter disgrace in the village, but the fact that her father is a drunkard who hit his wife and child, drank away every penny they had, including the ownership of the farm... well, that's dismissed out of hand as nothing, the priest commenting at one point that it's just the climate.

Despite the lynch mob and the world being against them, they struggle through, but in the end it is themselves that can't get the relationship through. Caithleen is too young, naive and uncertain of herself for Eugene. She's aware of this and it comes out in silly emotional outbursts, which would annoy anyone. Yet Eugene makes matters worse to an extent, patronising her all the time and trying to educate her to his way of thinking. Because of course the best way to help someone with problems and insecurities is to make them feel even smaller. This is one of the things that makes me cross whilst reading these books and wanting to read on, the fact that everyone, through whatever intention, is trying to control and mould Caithleen. She never gets a chance to grow herself. So we end up with this silly sobbing mess. There's some hope as she and her friend Baba set sail for England at the end of the book.

Baba is still selfish and when she makes an appearance she still has some wonderful cutting barbs, but as I said she's taking a bit of a back seat in this book. It makes her less hateful. I really couldn't stand her in the first book. You could think she is a friend. There's one thing that was never explained in the book: who wrote those anonymous letters? I suppose it was always going to come out one way or another, but I suspect it was Baba behind those letters. There were silly embellishments to Caithleen's apparant shame; plus she sent a little warning letter to Caithleen. In the first book she was always sabotaging the girl and wanting to appear the better, so I don't suppose it went down well that a man they both knew was more interested in Caithleen. I wonder if we'll find out the truth in the third book.