“I can’t say for certain why the three of us are friends. Sure, who can answer a question like that. I suppose there aren’t many children along our road, so there isn’t much choice, and I don’t give it a lot of thought. We carry on as we are, and there’s plenty of fun to be had. That’s not to say that I couldn’t make nicer or better friends in another place, but how would I ever know the difference.”

 

Pole in the sky, Geilston Bay. August 2021.

You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here by Frances Macken

You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here strikes me as a book that is something of a fusion of Derry Girls and Normal People, with a jarring murder/ disappearance side plot that is left unreconciled. As such, it did not quite hit the mark for me.

In our narrator, the drifting Katie, along with best (!) friends, the toxic Evelyn and meek Maeve, we follow the unlikely trio. as they try to adjust from childhood to life in adulthood. For a story that centres on this cramped friendship, it is striking the extent to which these girls don't really like each other.

I note that some reviewers took issue with the lack of resolution to the Katie and Evelyn dynamic, but the lacklustre death of their relationship seemed a natural course to me. What bothered me more was the seeming abandonment of the disappearance of Pamela Cooney. A number of clues/ red herrings are sprinkled in the direction of a range of characters, but the entire plotline just peters out with little fanfare.

Similarly - and perhaps not unrelated - a fair bit of effort has been made to get readers to look at the decidedly odd Maeve in all manner of ways, but the ending to this arc also felt queerly unsatisfying. To this reader though, unlike the Pamela plotline, this is likely a deliberate literary choice from Macken. One not to my taste though.

All up, I liked more of the book than not and will keep a keen eye out for what comes next.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐