I loved Chloe Aridjis's Book of Clouds so it was exciting to read her new novel, Asunder, which, in a story about art, guardianship, damage and philosophy, revealed again the deftness and depth of narrative understanding of this subtle and courageous writer.

Exhilarating… The novel wonderfully disobeys all conventional rules of realism and plotting, of show-don't-tell. Powerful and artful, Asunder works like a poem, pulling us into a labyrinthine sequence of connected images. By the end, it seems like an abstract painting, apparently defying narrative time. This all makes for rapturous and enraptured reading.

Strange, extravagant, darkly absorbing… This is a book about quietness and violence. There is a Nabokovian rhythm in Asunder's obsessive permutations, and in the novel's dance of fluttering life and slow decay. Her novel thrills with energy because of it.

Chloe Aridjis is crafting a poetics of the strange. To describe her novels as inconsequential is not to deny them substance, but to highlight their shadowy randomness, their pearlescent impressionism and the way in which they work by hints and cross-references... this is deft and shimmering fiction.

Aridjis has risen to the occasion with Asunder. Given that Asunder lacks a conventional plot, the fact that it is such an absorbing and moving book says much about Aridjis's skill as a writer. Her unusual imagery and lyrical style breathe life into this otherwise sombre story.

[A] stunningly good second novel... Aridjis's intelligent prose makes this slight story into something dramatic and affecting, completely coherent and oddly irresistible. It is a brilliant book.

Aridjis's writing is refreshingly escapist... Moreover, the novel itself has escaped from the strait-jacket of convential narrative and plot. This leaves Asunder free to devote itself to mood and atmosphere, in which it is highly successful. Reading Asunder offers an unusually absorbing experience. It is also an unusually enjoyable one.

Asunder exists with an intensity stronger than that of most novels. Reading it is absorbing and enlarging to the imagination

Set amidst the stillness of museums and the magic of indeterminate urban spaces, this is a subtly lyrical novel about the lasting seductions of art, the ubiquitous processes of decay -- and the surprising renewals that can come from these. Chloe Aridjis writes about sensations at the edges of perception, capturing experiences rarely included in fiction. A surprising sensibility and an effortlessly original voice

Marie, the narrator of this charming novel, has the ideal job for someone who likes a quiet life. She’s a guard at the National Gallery in London... but she’s starting to long for change. In a story this elegant, it had to be Paris where her shell will be cracked.

[A] fine, ghostly novel. Aridjis has admirably tight control over her themes throughout – fittingly, for a book about visual arts, its mise en scene feels meticulous – and this control permits the book to be discursive without ever feeling meandering. [A] wise and haunting book.

Lyrical and intense…lucid and captivating writing. Asunder is full of beautifully painted intricate detail yet also forms the canvas for an exploration of powerful wider themes

Eschewing a conventional narrative, this absorbing, episodic novel deceptively contains a crackling energy within its understated, artful prose

A dark tale, nicely turned

Chloe Aridjis’s anticipated follow-up to her debut, Book of Clouds, haunts and beguiles as much as its predecessor

Aridjis tells an improbable tale with enough details to give it authenticity, and to make her genuinely creepy story something thoughtful and original

This is an incredibly atmospheric novel, seen through the eyes of Marie, a consummate outsider

Aridjis is a fantastic new voice in fiction with a real gift for character and location

Set against London’s rain-soaked streets, it is an astute portrait of the alienation of urban life

A beautiful tale examining the processes of life

Eschewing a conventional narrative, this absorbing novel deceptively contains a crackling energy within its understated, artful prose