Scintillating . . . Berlin is wonderfully funny, and Daphne's observations about modern life, men and the challenges facing young women always hit the nail

Uncommonly funny, cinematically vivid, and refreshingly honest about how we deceive others and ourselves.

Anyone who's started over in a new city -- let alone a new country -- will relate . . . One for Sally Rooney fans

A compelling, raw, and thrillingly strange outsider tale of loneliness and deception. Setton is a wonderful writer who, with this sharp debut, adds to the great canon of contemporary anti-heroines.

Combining the darkness of a thriller with humour, Bea Setton's debut is a fresh and deeply honest take on the modern female experience

Setton builds her growing paranoia and sense of dread to terrific effect in this unsettling, compelling read.

Enjoyable and astutue . . . Daphne's impressions are rendered in precise, lively prose

Cinematic and confessional . . . Berlin is a Woolfian mirror: Red herrings and cliffhangers stoke interest by conforming to expectations, until the novel undercuts them with digressions and anticlimaxes, reveling in its own formal impunity. . . electric.

[An] engagingly self-conscious debut . . . our attention is firmly held by the wry wit of Daphne's voice, as well as regular hints that she's something of an unreliable narrator . . . the book's success lies chiefly in its line by-line charm

Weird, compelling and unique: I was completely absorbed by BERLIN, with its slippery, unsettling narrator, its vivid evocation of a city seen through the troubling lens of disorientation, and by the writing itself, which gleamed.

Intimate, confessional . . . Rich and rewarding . . . readers will leave eager to hear more from Bea Setton.

Berlin made me laugh aloud, and then became strangely and compellingly dark. I loved it.

I loved this novel with its complex, flawed and fascinating heroine. Bea Setton presents us with a vivid and youthful depiction of one of my favourite cities in the world. A wonderful achievement.

In this dark and twisty debut, Setton crafts a clever thriller-cum-expat narrative for fans of Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation . . . Setton expertly portrays the wily, seductive nature of addictions and dysfunctions . . . Daphne's youthful despair and loneliness are horror stories in and of themselves-ones from which it is hard to look away, especially when coupled with the evocative German setting. . . Raw thriller meets darkly funny coming-of-age for an enjoyable, unsettling debut.

A moving and rollicking tale of self-delusion...Setton proves herself a masterful and hilarious chronicler of contemporary life...Well-plotted while still capturing the meandering feeling of Daphne's unbound life, and with deliciously handled foreshadowing, Setton's sharp novel of stunted plans is compulsively readable and ultimately devastating. This isn't one to miss.

Written in funny, punchy vignettes perfect for consumption between U-Bahn stops, and a few hours in the presence of Daphne Ferber pay generous spiritual dividends.

Bea Setton's luminous drama will keep you on your toes with razor-sharp wit

Shines an unsparing light on the murky grey space of a woman's mid-twenties with a narrative voice that's sharp, wry, and unexpectedly tender

Bea Setton's narrator Daphne, full of quirky observations, incisive humour, and a winning vulnerability, is a delight to chase through Berlin. Although I couldn't always decide whether I wanted to scold her, shake her, or join her, I know I'll never forget her.

It's uncomfortable, it's telling, it's interesting, it's thought-provoking, just everything . . . it really delivered

Bea Setton's scathing portrait of expat life traps her protagonist in layers of self-deception . . . an astute accounting of a young woman's checkered struggle to change her life

In this fictional diary of a pregnant woman, it is the real, rather than the made-up, aspects of society, such as single parenting and discrimination against women in the workplace, that are powerfully depicted.

Yagi artfully blurs the boundary between truth and lies with this riotous solution to women's workplace challenges.

[A] penetrating look at working life and gender expectations... In a tone perfectly modulated in Boyd and North's translation, Shibata's dry observations and choices are both relatable and humorous...At the heart of the story is Yagi's wry and witty consideration of how one woman, tangled up in a web of deceit, struggles to live a meaningful life through work and her relationships with others.

Charming and funny

A jewel of a novel that will surely become a classic... enthralling and unmissable

A celebration of love and loyalty among women.

Big-hearted, generous and brimful of emotion, this a gorgeous, life-enhancing read

It is a beaut. It's a celebration of women and of womanhood. I see my mother in this, I see my sister ... This book is a joy.

If language - lyric, lovely and funny, steeped in County Tipperary - and women (men come and go, rarely center a chapter and are often useless, sometimes cruel) are of no interest to you, The Queen of Dirt Island is not your next read. Ryan's book is a celebration, in an embroidered, unrestrained, joyful, aphoristic and sometimes profane style, of both ... The Queen of Dirt Island gives the women their due, and the reader is rewarded.

Donal Ryan's The Queen of Dirt Island is a little Irish miracle ... there's as much implicit wisdom in these pages about how to live as how to write ... Ryan has his own emotional range and a way of capturing the largeness of what look like tiny lives but aren't

Frank, funny and emotional

A fascinatingly realistic look into the world of elite sports where driven and flawed characters' private lives are just as intriguing and controversial as they are on the court

This is a well-researched, exciting and genuinely tender book

McEwan is on top form… Social satire that wears its learning lightly

[A] brilliant novel… A tour de force in language and literary intrigue.

A book pulsing with hilarious and brainy brio… He simultaneously spoofs crime fiction and finds a novel mouthpiece for a mordantly entertaining and exhilaratingly intelligent commentary on the modern world.

A comic tale… It is a masterpiece.

[A] wonderful new novel.

By turns, funny, shocking and compelling. But the writing is so clever and beautiful. I could read it again and again.

The voice of its narrator, a foetus, is splendidly sardonic.

Not only does he pull it off, he does so triumphantly, in the cleverest book I’ve read this year. It’s smart, dark and at times very funny.

A saucy, claustrophobic and darkly funny story which is all rather peculiar. Compulsive reading.

I devoured Ian McEwan’s latest very funny spin on Hamlet.

An ingenious rewrite of Hamlet as a murder story in which a foetus is detective and possible victim.

This is McEwan at his most playfully provocative.

A clever conceit, elegantly wrought, economically constructed.

A bewitching ode to humanity’s beauty, longing and selfishness.

A gripping piece of fiction.

I was hooked from the first page.

[A] smart, eloquent novel.

A enthralling read from one of the world’s master storytellers.

McEwan delights with lyrical prose that is fittingly poetic.

[A] work which both fascinates and disturbs through its unique perspective on a malicious death… Every sentence is a joy to behold, a gift to the reader of delicately considered prose, and thoughtful observations… Alongside its edgy and entertaining narration, and perhaps in part because of it, the novel manages to challenge all preconceptions of the crime genre, upending the whodunit into an extraordinary will-they-do-it… By nature, Nutshell is a novel which perplexes, entertains, and moves the reader in equal turn, all with McEwan’s startling attention to detail, and luxuriant prose style. Read it for its peculiar narrator, read it for the rapidly-changing and intense emotions, or read it just for the thrill of chase as the killing comes to fruition; whatever intrigues you about this novel, just make sure that you do read it – and feel the thrill for yourself.

Brilliantly realised… Any book so bound up in a conceit and in its own verbal fireworks at times runs the risk of being a bit clever-clever. But on the whole we accept in a suspension of disbelief the foetus’s pompous mastery of language and imagery and abandon ourselves to the sheer eloquent pleasure of this hilarious romp.

Short, odd but pleasurable… Great fun, and very well written.

Rich in Shakespearean allusion, this is McEwan on dazzling form.

Told from a perspective unlike any other, Nutshell is a classic tale of murder and deceit from one of the world’s master storytellers.

Ian McEwan’s brilliance as a stylist and surprise plotter finds a fitting subject in Nutshell…, which is Hamlet as told from inside the womb. Up there with his best.

A gripping tale is told with breathtaking skill, turbocharged with rage against the madness and despair of our modern world.

Nutshell is one of those books you sit down to read and don’t get up until you’ve finished. It is brilliantly executed and full of surprises; original, clever and witty. Simply a must-read

A book I couldn’t put down… brilliantly clever