Editorial reviews

Gardam’s ability to bring people so fully to life, in such vivid detail, never fails to delight. Such vivid people and dialogue — more than many of her books, I could imagine this as a film.

The Penalty Area is charming, and it’s easy to imagine it being a film. If you need a bookish boost, you can’t go wrong with this story.

Overall, a smart, sharp-eyed, entertaining, engrossing story.

The work is original, ambitious and challenging, submerging the reader in the strangeness of an anomalous mind, an aqueous medium where language is refracted into mazes of shifting meanings.

The result is an eerie melodrama in which the bloodshed seems more mimed than motivated – and which tosses, almost in passing, a grenade into debates over self-determination, luridly staging the supremacy of biological fact.

All of it adds up to a remarkable package, thought-provoking and compelling, as it ricochets between the familiar and the unexpected.

Though occasionally reminiscent of David Mitchell, Sjón’s work is unlike anything else in contemporary fiction. Strange—but stunning.

This wayward, exciting odyssey confronts death throughout. Nothing is quite what it seems, and there are no easy answers. Here, instead, is an artist preoccupied with questions.

An intimate and resonant take on finding one’s place in the world even while being pulled in opposing directions.

The entire narrative is imbued with a sitcom gloss that ultimately numbs the reader to the emotional crises that Ruth faces.

The Shepherd’s Hut is resplendent, too, with excellent descriptions of the outback and the struggles Jaxie must overcome just to eke out a living. The visceral images of hunting kangaroos and the desperation of thirst create a marvelous sense of realism that made me feel like I was native to a country I’ve never set foot in.

Meet Me at the Museum is a touching, hopeful story about figuring out what matters and mustering the courage to make necessary changes.

It will unmoor you, send you wobbling around your house in a haze. It will slide some eels under your skin. My recommendation? Let it. We can all stand to learn some new truths.

Following along as Sunshine navigates the tenuous waters of her family relationships and attempts to make amends was actually quite a funny and charming read.

My advice: Don’t take the bait when “The Third Hotel” starts voguing like a thriller. Instead, read it as the inscrutable future cult classic it probably is, and let yourself be carried along by its twisting, unsettling currents.

Pheby is a writer possessed of unusual – indeed, extraordinary – powers. His Lucia is a fully accomplished account of a troubled and troubling life.

Zinovieff is skilled at evoking the shifting moral and social terrain – things were permissible in the 1970s that would be unacceptable now – while never letting us forget that none of that can be an excuse: Daphne was a child and Ralph was a grown adult.

It’s a sign of excellent literature to be able to effortlessly hold up multiple interpretations at once. Murata’s book is no exception: It’s all of these things while also rendering an artful grotesque of modern personal branding.

Despite its treatment of sexual exploitation, How To Be Famous is not dark — it is a joyous, yelping novel about learning to love things without apology or irony.