The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride

Casting agents are surely already circling the lead role in the inevitable screen version of this, Eimar McBride's exceptional follow-up to her 2013 debut A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing. A part to die for, no doubt. And one, you suspect, even the initially unnamed narrator herself (a first year drama student) would struggle to play. Arriving in London from Ireland, she flinches beneath the weight of the city, shrinks within her inexperience: 'Odd one out, but intentions the best and I don't mind much because Fuck Off fitting in.'

Quickly she catches the capital's stride ('God it's ugly, she says. But no no no I take its side') and finds a friend who helps her negotiate social awkwardness ('College together, she explains with a kind of liquid negligence I'd like to dab on the backs of my knees') and the faltering first steps of a relationship with an established actor twice her age. Built on a faltering introduction to sex ('I go quick to the thrillpleasuredread'), it eventually brings challenges dark and unexpected.

McBride is a daring and resourceful writer. She inverts words, revises their meaning. A reader alive to the music of her language is a reader repaid tenfold for their input. Youth: life's greatest gift and its greatest trial, and The Lesser Bohemians knows this all too well. Everyone should know its extraordinary protagonist and everyone should read this unique, harrowing, and brilliant book. [Gary Kaill]