McKeon takes a line from James Salter’s Light Years as her epigraph: “You know, you only have one friend like that; there can’t be two.”

Tender is an absorbing at times irritating examination of an obsessive friendship among the young, of Irish history during the Nineties when homosexuality is finally legalized in Ireland, of urban university life versus the rural upbringing they share, of art and literature as the protagonist studies Hughes and Plath and writes art criticism, and finally the jealousy that undoes them. Catherine is eighteen when she meets aspiring photographer James in 1997. He is a year older, just back from working in Berlin. They bond like magic and talk daily. The author opens the book with a James Salter quote: “You know, you only have one friend like that; there can’t be two.”

The book is structured in interesting ways, starting out with much talking in the narrative as the two become close, moving into choppiness in Moonfoam and Silver when deeper relationships and sex intrude and tapering off to lots of poetry in Romance when the connection falters and fails. The final sections occur at a reunion fourteen years later.

My exasperation with Catherine in the beginning of the story was high, her youth, her naivete, her self-absorption but slowly the reader understands her intensity, her desperation not to lose James. By the time she loses herself in an ill-planned confrontation and forsakes the friendship, it is a much more empathetic eye gazing at young Catherine and absorbing her shock and horror at what happens around her. Fortunately, the author gives us a look at the two of them fourteen years hence to see how all turned out. There's humor, too, and beautiful sentences. And again very much along the periphery of this story of young people at Trinity College in Dublin are the weight and effect of the Troubles in Ireland. ( )

This is a beautifully written and difficult to read (in a good way) love story. This book was so much better than anything I have read recently that I was terrified the author might let me down. At first I wasn’t sure I liked where the last chapter was going, but in the end it was perfect. Anything else I could say would be a spoiler. I have already ordered McKeon’s first book, Solace, and I might save it until the summer. Highly recommend! ( )

When this opened I thought, I might like this. University life in Dublin - shades of Normal People. Even the audiobook's narrator, Michelle Ferguson, with a strong Irish accent in my books, was understandable with a reasonably pleasant timbre - two qualities I haven't always found with the Irish narrators chosen to read Irish stories.

And I quite enjoyed the style of writing, the sharp eye for detail, the perceptions.

Didn't much like the swearing, which wasn't in direct speech but in the author's writing, strangely.

But I couldn't get into the story. The story was a non-story, despite the sharp detail in the telling - where was it going?! So I gave up listening to the audiobook after 3/13 parts. ( )

4.5 stars ( )

This is a story of two immature people in a difficult relationship in the late 20th century. Catherine finds herself attracted to, and then dependent on, a gay man. She constantly behaves in a way she regrets and doesn't fully understand. I can completely accept review opinions along the lines of: "this was 400 pages of annoying, self-centred, destructive behaviour". Catherine certainly doesn't seem like someone I would like to know. But Belinda McKeon has done a pretty good job of creating such a character, and for painting a picture of Irish university life in the late 20th century. Being gay is never going to be easy in this largely homophobic society, and we do get a sense of the difficulty of negotiating a path to a good relationship through the many and varied obstacles. I didn't really understand what made Catherine into the girl that we meet, but I guess that's a situation we're always encountering. I behave in ways I don't like too....why? The ending of the book really makes the preceding 400 pages of reading worthwhile. And the author photograph by Alen MacWeeney is one of the best I've seen. ( )