At first glance, I found the style of this book to be challenging; it's entirely composed of fragmented sentences and there are no quotations to suggest when dialogue begins or ends. However, as I made my way through the novel, I realized how much the style of the book influenced the reader. To me, each fragment of a sentence - especially those relating to self-esteem and blatant uncertainty - felt like the real, natural reaction to the situation at hand. Also, let me just put it out there: the sex in this book is the best sex I've ever read; it was awkward, it was vulnerable, it was steamy, and it felt real.

We follow Eily, an 18 year old student studying theater in London, who meets an older gentleman, Matthew, at a pub in town. At first she is a bit weary about their 20 year age difference, but gradually warms up to the idea of being intimate with a man with experience who appears to have it all together. She eventually learns more about Matthew and the two begin to see each other frequently. As the book progresses, it's clear that both Eily and Matthew have troubled pasts that are negatively influencing their current relationship.

I won't lie, this book really threw me for a loop; I was so surprised to see how emotionally invested I was in a story that exhibited the well overused "young girl falls for an older man" trope. I actually had to stop and put the book down a few times to cry... there was just something that was so beautifully intimate and vulnerable about the experimental writing in this book that completely tugged at my heartstrings. ( )

Zero stars.

It seems that other people have liked this book, but for the life of me, I couldn't finish it. I could barely get started.

The perspective is deep in the protagonist's consciousness, so deep that the prose reads as even more incomprehensible than Kerouac's. It's not stream of consciousness so much as a 320-page cypher for the reader to parse out what's happening. I don't have the patience for that.

The cover is lovely, and perhaps if this was an audiobook, it would sound less like word salad. Clearly, this book and I were not meant to be.

London, the nineties. She is eighteen, newly arrived. Is picked up by a thirty-eight-year-old theatre actor one night at a bar. Her first time. A one-night-stand that fumbles its way into a relationship.

He's done horrible things to his ex-wife, to himself. Bad things to her. On the surface, you should hate or despise him, but McBride draws him perfectly.
Stephen has is broken, tragic. You are drawn into sympathizing for him effortlessly. His backstory unfolds: his shame for what he's done, what he has suffered. These make sense of what he's done and does. But carefully, never too much, never heavy-handed.

The ex left for Canada with the daughter with barely a day's notice. Devastates him. He coped as he had in the past: using sex. Sex with anyone, anywhere.
In the present, this leads not quite where you expect it to, but in its vicinity at least.

Bohemians teaches the reader the sorrow, regret, and shame our lover feels for what they have done, defies true understanding until we cheat on them and feel that same sorrow, regret, and shame. The despair. Knowing that it cannot be undone. That all you can do is apologize, beg, promise. Despair. Cry.

That knowing about the other's past does not guarantee the ability to forgive what they've done. Some circumstance will need to force us to look at things differently than we have been.

That acceptance and forgiveness are precious, even if they come too late.
( )

The Lesser Bohemians is an unusually slow yet addictingly euphoric read for me.

Written on a first point-of-view + no quotation marks or whatsoever, it tells the raw story of an Irish young woman moving to the heart of London to seek for acting lessons, and love. And that's when she met this older and much more experience actor with a traumatic past.

The romance of this book is definitely... something. You can sense my gritted teeth that my next comment will be as bad, and y'all are right. It is so toxic that Chernobyl is tired competing next to it.

I don't care if the redemptive ending kinda ate but but these people need help, specially Stephen. He makes my blood boil urgh. ( )

Some sort-of spoilers below.

This audiobook is read by the author. It is like a mash-up of Shakespeare and Beckett, with language that is rhythmic, rhyming, and allusive. I just started so not far in, but the language is so beautiful, in the service of youth and art...

This book is largely about sex and love, and the ways they intersect or don't. It's also about the sexual initiation of a young woman, newly arrived in London to go to acting school. The author writes about sex explicitly and poetically throughout--this might not be to every reader's liking. These are not fade-to-black sexual scenes; but McBride's writing in this regard is bold and sensitive--not like anything I've read before. Still, from my vantage point, it sometimes seems like a distant land and I wanted to wring the necks of those youngsters, for their lack of perspective and undaunted pursuit of their desires. But then again I was one once.

The central love story is counterpointed by experiences in the main characters' childhoods of disturbed love from adults, as well as by the dogged and responsible love a father feels for his daughter. The relationships all echo and reflect, and there are dawning awarenesses from several characters. McBride writes her protagonist's inner voice in the allusive and fragmentary style I mentioned above. It is beautiful and I didn't get lost in it, mainly I think because of the author's beautiful reading (I think this is a great book to listen to). Later, when the main character's lover tells the story of his youth, she switches to a more straightforward narrative, which serves his revelations well and makes they all the more powerful because of the unornamented language. Further, the characters remain nameless throughout much of the book--and only the two main characters ever acquire names. When the first name slipped in, I had to rewind to be sure of what I'd heard. Finally, the protagonist names the second character is a direct address to him. This whole thing, the naming, was perhaps what I loved most about the book. It was so powerful, the names making them "be" in a new way that was touching and made the trajectory of their relationship all the more coherent. ( )