Intriguing and well-crafted...approaches greatness...his prose is cleanly wrought and carefully composed, smooth, funny and poignant

A dazzling novel

Cruelty and affection and erudition and innocence are so perfectly balanced in these stories, they almost make me wish I were young again

Marks a welcome entry into the American novel

Smart, funny and compassionate: a near-perfect debut

An unashamedly clever satire on a generation numbed by Bush's stolen election... Gessen is one to watch.

A welcome introduction to an author whose suggestive, unsettling storytelling speaks volumes by leaving things unsaid

Hard not to finish in one go, Yoko Ogawa's stories are perfect for spooky bedtime reading - and not-so-sweet dreams

Polished, original and strange. She reveals humour, menace, and humanity in a quietly explosive book

Her combination of the strange with the visceral elegantly conveys silent inner worlds of misery and pain

Ogawa is original, elegant, very disturbing. I admire any writer who dares to work on this uneasy territory - we're on the edge of the unspeakable. The stories seem to penetrate right to the heart of the world, and find it a cold and eerie place. Her spare technique is very skilled. Every word is put to work. She sets up a small vibration, a disturbance, which begins quietly and generates wider and wider ripples of unease. There are no narrative tricks, but the stories generate a surprising amount of tension. You feel as if you've touched an icy hand

Ogawa's tales possess a gnawing, erotic edge

Yoko Ogawa is able to give expression to the most subtle workings of human psychology in prose that is gentle yet penetrating.

Each well narrated and haunting novella, about love, obsession and dark humour, has an unpredictable twist of viciousness coupled with compassion