Milkman received strongly positive reviews, with critics mostly praising the book's narration,[2] atmosphere, humour,[3][4] and its complex portrayal of Northern Irish sociopolitics.

The protagonist's desire to avoid political matters is shown by both her refusal to use character names and her reading-while-walking (quite literally burying her head in a book to emancipate herself from the reality of the Troubles).

While Burns initially expected to write the novel in three weeks, she eventually finished Milkman over a period of ten months, during which time she ran out of money and had to claim benefits.

[17][18] Writing for The Washington Post, Ron Charles described the novel as "challenging" but "rewarding",[19] and Dwight Garner panned the book as "rarely seizing upon any sort of clarity or emotional resonance" in a review for The New York Times.

[20] In Literary Review, John Self acknowledged that the novel's evasiveness and lack of unified plot is challenging for the reader, yet praised Burns for the "otherworldly" version of Northern Ireland her narrator is able to convey: "a threatening fairy-tale setting where people define themselves in opposition to those 'over the border', 'over the water' or simply 'over the road'".

Kwame Anthony Appiah, Chair of Judges, commented:[22] "The language of Anna Burns’ Milkman is simply marvellous; beginning with the distinctive and consistently realised voice of the funny, resilient, astute, plain-spoken, first-person protagonist.

From the opening page her words pull us into the daily violence of her world — threats of murder, people killed by state hit squads — while responding to the everyday realities of her life as a young woman, negotiating a way between the demands of family, friends and lovers in an unsettled time.

The novel delineates brilliantly the power of gossip and social pressure in a tight-knit community, and shows how both rumour and political loyalties can be put in the service of a relentless campaign of individual sexual harassment.

Burns draws on the experience of Northern Ireland during the Troubles to portray a world that allows individuals to abuse the power granted by a community to those who resist the state on their behalf.