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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]
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]
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 City in 2021.[18]