BookBrowse Reviews Nesting by Roisín O'Donnell

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An intense debut that depicts one woman's escape from an emotionally abusive relationship, and the challenges she faces as she searches for stability and independence.

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Roisín O'Donnell's debut novel, Nesting, opens with what appears to be a perfect family on an outing: a strong, strikingly handsome husband and his gorgeous wife out for a day on the beach with their two little girls. Beneath the facade, though, things are not what they seem. Ryan, the patriarch, insists on taking the girls—a two-year-old and a four-year-old—swimming in the Irish Sea, even though it's April and neither child knows how to swim. The tension increases as the girls begin to wail and shiver in the cold. Their mother, Ciara, finally rescues them—but this doesn't relieve the reader's uneasiness. Ryan refuses to speak to Ciara on the car ride home, then berates her—her actions humiliated him, he says, she's always trying to control him. "What's wrong with you? You're crazy. No wonder you've no friends. I'm done with you," he shouts.

Readers quickly understand: Ryan is emotionally abusive and Ciara has been trapped in this marriage, manipulated into believing she's a bad wife and mother. The next day, she snaps. She decides while Ryan is at work that she must leave and she must leave now. She haphazardly pulls the clothes from the clothesline, piles the kids and anything else she can carry into the car, and flees. She has no plan, no idea where she can go. Ryan has kept her broke and isolated, so her options are limited. The rest of the novel revolves around Ciara's attempts to find safety for herself and her children and resist the pull to return to her spouse.

O'Donnell convincingly portrays the outward signs of an emotionally abusive relationship as well as the pain, loneliness, and self-doubt that Ciara experiences from her husband's invective and manipulations. The non-physical nature of emotional abuse can make it insidious and difficult to explain to others, even those who want to help (see Beyond the Book). For example, in one scene, Ciara applies for legal advice and is asked why she left her husband. "I don't know," she replies. "It was. It was just difficult." "Difficult?" the clerk responds, "There's no box for that. Physical abuse…infidelity…sexual abuse…?" Because there are no bruises, there is no proof.

The reader anxiously follows Ciara as she tries to get help from various government services and organizations. O'Donnell is painfully realistic about the challenges of relying on these types of assistance; for Ciara, help is available, but finding it and getting it are far from straightforward. One might think this sounds dull—after all, who wants to read about paperwork—but Ciara's journey to a secure life is compellingly fraught, plagued by misinformation, delays, lost documentation, and a few less-than-helpful civil servants. O'Donnell brilliantly conveys the stress that underlies even Ciara's most mundane days. As her funds dwindle, something as simple as driving to a shelter becomes a source of tension, as she has no money to fill her near-empty gas tank. A Dublin agency that helps people experiencing homelessness provides her with an emergency room at a hotel, but she must check in at 8:00 PM every evening, a deadline the reader constantly worries she won't meet. Ciara struggles to comply with the rules of state-provided accommodation and overcome myriad other challenges as she strives to live an independent life and provide for her children.

Nesting often reads like a thriller, partly because of these tense, anxiety-inducing scenes in which Ciara's livelihood is at risk, and partly because of Ryan's presence looming over the narrative. Intense scenes unfold when he steps back into Ciara's life; in one, Ciara feels that she's reached a safe place, only to have Ryan show up unexpectedly at her door. He claims that he's been kicked out of their joint rental and is staying with college friends, but he still wants his court-ordered visitation with his children. He'll just have to spend the time with the girls at her house, he tells her. Will Ciara let him inside? What will happen if she says yes, and what are the consequences if she says no?

The reader, of course, wants to yell at Ciara: "Don't let him in!" But O'Donnell does a great job of portraying Ciara's fear and internal struggle; we understand why she hesitates. The novel wouldn't work if Ciara and those around her were not such finely drawn, complex characters. And perhaps the highlight of Nesting is getting a front-row seat to Ciara's evolution as she comes to recognize Ryan's machinations—and learns to resist them.

This review first ran in the March 26, 2025 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.