We are jetting off to Ireland, where we meet the Gogarty family in Good Eggs by Rebecca Hardiman.

When Kevin Gogarty’s irrepressible eighty-three-year-old mother, Millie, is caught shoplifting yet again, he has no choice but to hire a caretaker to keep an eye on her. Kevin, recently unemployed, is already at his wits’ end tending to a full house while his wife travels to exotic locales for work, leaving him solo with his sulky, misbehaved teenaged daughter, Aideen, whose troubles escalate when she befriends the campus rebel at her new boarding school.

Into the Gogarty fray steps Sylvia, Millie’s upbeat American home aide, who appears at first to be their saving grace—until she catapults the Gogarty clan into their greatest crisis yet.

With charm, humor, and pathos to spare, Good Eggs is a delightful study in self-determination; the notion that it’s never too late to start living; and the unique redemption that family, despite its maddening flaws, can offer. 

As we are dropped into their lives, we meet Millie, an 83-year old who has just been caught shoplifting. Again. And wasn’t that her car that she crashed and tried to hide from her son, Kevin? So Kevin decides to hire someone to watch over Millie, who happens to be from America. Sylvia steps into their lives with her nephew, who is the same age as Kevin’s rebellious daughter.

Kevin is having troubles of his own with his marriage troubles, a mid-life crisis and a daughter he cannot control. As he sends Aideen off to boarding school, he tries to find work again while caring for his other 3 children while his wife works insane hours away.

Aideen, meanwhile, is dealing with her own problems as she is trying to survive school while befriending the troublemaker in school, while getting to know Sylvia’s nephew.

It all comes to a head when Sylvia turns everyone’s life upside down.

This book is told from all 3 POV’s to make a seamless story of the Gogarty clan. While I found the stories of Keven and Aideen interesting, I did not enjoy reading about Millie. If I’m siding with a character saying she should be placed in a home, then it’s not sitting well with me.

The hi-jinx that Millie got up to was a bit much and just kept getting more and more crazy. Unfortunately, I didn’t care for her, but I did for Aideen. And I was intrigued by Kevin’s story of where it would end up – would he save his marriage? Would he crumble under the pressure of his world? I relate to him somewhat in those respects.

All in all, the authors writing did have me turning the pages more and more to see what would happen next. I could just do with a lot less of Millie. Other reviewers loved her though, and found her to be funny and vibrant.

Have you read Good Eggs? If so, what were your thoughts on Millie?

Good Eggs is out now! Thank you to the publisher for providing a copy for review via Netgalley!