The Aisling (sometimes referred to as OMGWACA)[1][2] series of novels are five
adult fiction books by Irish journalists and authors
Emer McLysaght and
Sarah Breen. The series began with Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling The Novel, based on an Aisling (or Ais) character archetype created by the authors and discussed in the "oh my god what a complete aisling"
Facebook group.[3][4] To date there are five books in the series.[5] They are published by
Gill Books and
Penguin Books.[6][7] The series was
optioned as a film before being worked into a yet-to-be-produced TV series.[8][9]
Description
Aisling began as a stock character type, a "
culchie" from "Ballygobackwards" (BGB),[10][11] up in the "big smoke"
Dublin.[3][4] Other stock characters, Mad Tom[11] Deddeh, Memmeh, Niamh and Fionn, all from "Across The Road" (FATR) were used by users in posts to describe Aisling's life and eccentricities.[12] About Aisling,
Sarra Manning, of
Red Online, wrote that readers "laugh with her, never at her ... [admiring] her for the same traits that we don't necessarily value in ourselves. We love her because she's a complete Aisling and we wouldn't have her any other way".[13] To date, the series contains five books:[5]
Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling The Novel (August 2017)
0-717-17980-X
The Importance of Being Aisling (September 2018)
0-717-18160-X
Once, Twice, Three Times and Aisling (September 2019)
0-717-18793-4
Actress
Tara Flynn, writing for The Irish Times, thought that it would have been easy to make a book of lists about the characters, but that the first novel gave "Aisling the flesh and bones she deserves, and a story that licks along at a pace".[12] Flynn hoped for a movie adaptation, and suggested she might portray Memmeh.[12] Síle Ní Choincheannain, of
Mary I College has described the series as having "deftly captured a unique Irish archetype and modern heroine".[14]TheJournal.ie described the first book as a "publishing phenomenon".[15]
The Importance of being Aisling won the
2018 "Popular Irish Fiction" category at the
Irish Book Awards,[16] with Once, Twice, Three Times an Aisling winning the same prize
in 2019,[17] and Aisling in the Cityin 2021.[18]