Girls in their Married Bliss cover art

Girls in their Married Bliss

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Girls in their Married Bliss

By: Edna O'Brien
Narrated by: Edna O'Brien
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About this listen

Kate and Baba are in London, playing out the tragicomedy of their married lives to its surprisingly level-headed conclusion. Kate, feeling trapped in her grey stone house with her increasingly cold husband, tearfully looks for her dreams of romance elsewhere. And when Eugene takes terrible, implacable revenge, she naturally turns to her brazen friend Baba for help. But Baba, the bored trophy wife of builder Frank, vulgarly flashing his wealth and ignorance to the world, has her own problems without Kate drooping self-pityingly over her. And both women find unsuspected qualities in themselves as they learn to face reality.

The last book in the 'Country Girls' Trilogy, which began with 'The Country Girls' and was followed by 'Girl with Green Eyes'.

©1964 Edna O'Brien (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Contemporary Contemporary Romance Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Romance Marriage

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All stars
Most relevant
I enjoyed Country girls and the lonely girl more to be honest but that just my opinion . The a

slighyly unsatisfying ending

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all the anger that Irish Catholicism brings to those subjected to it. there are no pat answers which God or the church have to life. it just has to be lived and learned from

it reflects

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Just pure delight, the truth,amazing, made so real as read by Edna putting as always her whole heart and soul into every word. Her passion can only be an inspiration to us all. Thank you Kate and Baba 🤗👌🏻

The Truth

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Reading by author herself may not be the best quality audio wise, but stunning nevertheless.

Haunting and acid accurate

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The trilogy is an important work, even more so at this time when women believe they are liberated

2022. They are not

Enduring Masterpiece

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I very much enjoyed the first two books The Country Girls and The Lonely Girl, really excellent. I also loved hearing Edna O'Brien reading the books, she really brings them to life and after all they are her creation.
I did get the feeling that Edna seemed to be rushing this story and I also felt that Edna got fed up with the Cathleen/Kate character. Baba dominated this book and is a chaotic, harsh and unpleasant woman. Yes she is gutsy and appears tough but a lot of it is bravado appearing to be tough when she is really insensitive and cold. Poor Kate gets a poor deal in this story, our lovely sensitive, romantic and unwise woman seems to be brushed under the carpet as Baba gets 'her voice' in this novel.
What happens to Kate is almost a bored after thought. After the chaos Edna suddenly remembers Kate in the end and thinks in a half hearted way probably needing to get the book finished for publishing of an ending for her which really is so vague and unimportant that I wonder if Edna's own character is a little like this in real life. In that she get interested, writes poetic beauty, gets the characters in, has some brash ones which are flippant and then finally she gets bored with the whole thing and wants it over with!
Why couldn't someone enlighten her about this before the publication. Though I doubt she would have listened to them.

A bit disappointed

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My review is jus this :superlatives. They are meaningless though, as they get used up on much lesser works. It was generous of Edna O'brien to add the epilogue, it felt just right. I found I didn't mind not being sure what ages the women were, they were real in a different way.
I hated the jolly little yelling fool Audible fool who butted in a second after the elgaic ending.

Closure

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I was disappointed with this book,the narrator's voice was distracting
After listening to the drama version of this story on a radio 4 podcast I immediately used one of my precious credits to listen to the written story,extremely disappointed 😞

Edna O'Brien should stick to writing, her voice was wrong for the characters in the story.

Narrators voice was distracting

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The chapters were recorded randomly so it was not possible to follow the story. I went on to buy the hardcopy book to be able to complete the trilogy. I would rather return this back and get my credit refunded.

Unable to listen and follow the story

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This novel was hailed in its day (mid-60s) as one of the first feminist portrayal of women. In some ways, it is.

Unfortunately, this description seems to ignore the fact that the "heroine", who spent the first book (The Country Girls) in ardent pursuit of a married man and the second chasing relentlessly yet another, is now married, looking for something better and is sniffing around yet another married man.

Quite why she does this is never explained. There's never any sign of a single man she could make a play for or who make a play for her, but the fact that this tramp gets her comeuppance in the end seems to be a "bad thing". Hmm. Not from MY point of view!

Here we go again

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