Media Reviews
BookPage
Each sister's voice is clear, purposeful, realistic and hopeful... . [the novel] becomes even more engaging as their stories overlap, growing increasingly complex and intertwined... . Hughes balances ordinary details with those that surprise and raise the stakes, keeping the reader hooked.
Brooklyn Rail
At the center of the novel is a question: what does it mean to center one's work on slowing our collective hurtling toward destruction?... . This is a powerful and timely novel.
Electric Literature
Funny, intelligent, tenderhearted, and aching... . Hughes is one of the greatest writers of dialogue at work today. She is peerless in her ability to develop and communicate complex ideas through witty banter and possesses remarkable range in her ability to write across various points of view. Her sentences are to be relished... . We need more writers like Hughes.
New York Times Book Review
Exuberant... . to categorize this novel into a tidy box undermines the daring genius of its author... . Hughes's prose is like a virtuosic jazz number — loose, free and surprising... . A bold, beautiful, complex novel.
Shelf Awareness
Yet another example of [Hughes's] gift for illuminating the dark places in the lives of dysfunctional, but deeply sympathetic, families... . [A] bighearted, wise, and frequently sharply funny novel.
Star-Tribune
The Alternatives contains multitudes. Its mysteries and complexities reward a second reading... [its] ending is a stunner. And Olwen, Maeve, Nell and Rhona make it unforgettable.
Real Simple
Told with biting wit and warmhearted insight,
The Alternatives by award-winning Irish author Caoilinn Hughes reflects our collective yearning to make sense of our lives.
Wall Street Journal
The novel begins with alternating chapters that sharply delve into each woman's life and work in brief, fascinating lectures on subjects from land subsidence to locavorism... . Ultimately
The Alternatives is concerned with the duties of caring for the planet and one's loved ones. The fact that these responsibilities are often in conflict makes this lively novel's sense of confusion feel well-earned.
Booklist (starred review)
Simply brilliant... . The dynamics of the sisters' interactions and the easy way they anticipate each others' needs while slipping into decades-old roles are the novel's highlights.
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Intelligent, impassioned, and wholly satisfying.
Library Journal
Intriguing....Readers will enjoy this story about the need for family, independence, and support.
Publishers Weekly
The inconsistent tone can be jarring, but Hughes shines when weaving the dense intellectual material of the three academic sisters' work into their dialogue.
Hernan Diaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Trust
I wish I knew how Caoilinn Hughes has managed to write a book of such depth and gravity that is also so gripping and relentlessly funny. A tale about sisterhood, a novel of ideas, a chronicle of our collective follies, a requiem for our agonizing species,
The Alternatives unfolds in a prose full of gorgeous surprises and glows with intelligence, compassion, and beauty.
Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses
Caoilinn Hughes is one of the most intelligent, surprising, and delightful writers around.
The Alternatives made me laugh, cry, and think. Any one of the Flattery sisters would have made a compelling story; together they are glorious, as is this novel.
Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind
Caoilinn Hughes's beautiful new novel uses a fairy-tale premise—four sisters, orphaned in their youth, each brilliant in her own way—to explore some of the most pressing issues of our time: the environment, politics, and how to live in the world.
The Alternatives is both a book of ideas and a gripping read, formally audacious yet deeply humane. Superb.