Billy is a book that will stay with me in my dreams

Although I only knew Billy Lee Turner for an all-too-brief 214 pages, I will mourn his death for the rest of my life

I kept trying to think of a writer who has done a better job of capturing clear, powerful and authentic language, the landscape, the people... I kept searching for comparisons and I kept coming up with masters of the art, from Aeschylus to Ernest Gaines

He writes in...in the idiom of his characters, which is rhythmic, expressive, ultimately poetic, and brings William Faulkner to mind

A beautifully written story where the dark prose is as viscous and twisted as the rotten folklore of Burden Falls. A thrilling, eye-watering read.

Wicked Little Deeds is such a creepy, twisty and atmospheric thriller. With a Stephen King-like eye for small town detail, Kat Ellis really knows how to get under your skin and drive suspense. I swear I saw Dead-Eyed Sadie in my window . . .

Kat Ellis has done it again! With wry, dark humour and a deliciously creepy mystery, Wicked Little Deeds is as alluring as a Thorn Blood Apple Sour, and twice as entertaining.

Cinematic, clever and creepy, with a main character that leaps off the page. Wicked Little Deeds ticks off all my moody thriller boxes.

Kitamura writes with forceful, direct prose that makes for a bracing read and leaves the reader mesmerized.

Katie Kitamura's voice - spare, electric, evocative - could take me anywhere. Especially into this landscape of global wanderers, uprooted women, fragmented souls. Intimacies is a singular pleasure - a dangerous, seductive, dagger of a novel.

Katie Kitamura writes with empathy, confidence, elegance, and fearlessness, her voice is entirely unique, and this novel leaves you feeling deeply unsettled in the best possible way. Read this book and you will see the world slightly differently forever.

An amazing book, beautiful and captivating.

Intimacies, by Katie Kitamura, is a gorgeous, destabilizing meditation on the power differentials built into language and the gradual distortions of our emotional allegiances.

Such a beauty - I love this book.

Coolly written and casts a spell... certainly one of the best novels I've read in 2021... a taut, moody novel that moves purposefully between worlds.

Spellbinding... Intimacies is a brilliant examination of language conveyed with the kind of pacing, tautness and menace usually associated with a thriller... [it] is nothing short of magnificent... both a gripping read and a chilling consideration of what's involved when we choose to ignore the things we don't want to see, let alone understand.

[A] graceful, glitteringly intelligent book... Kitamura's prose is gorgeously crisp and precise, and teems with sharp observations about everything from language to coercive relationships... An engrossing and evocative page-turner, Intimacies is also a profound, affecting look at the moral compromises of modern life.

[Intimacies] specificity comes to feel universal... the narrator's atomised experiences, her inability to forge a coherent narrative from her life, will feel compellingly strange as the pages rapidly turn - but also uncomfortably familiar, the book's final intimacy being the one between narrator and reader.

Mysterious and compelling

Kitamura's...language is measured with extreme care, to maximise a sense of the complex, ambiguous and multiple... an effect that proves spellbinding.

Intimacies... completely revamped the way I thought about fiction, What would it mean to write without all the tricks that a write can so easily hide behind?

Intimacies is an existential thriller laced with tensions on both personal and political levels.

An elegant study of the rewards and dangers of intimacy... Kitamura's subtle and perceptive novel glitters with insight into language love and the way we interpret others

Deft and sharply written, with a beautiful rhythm and clear voice, it's one of my favourite novels of the past few years.

Katie Kitamura's Intimacies - she's an incredible writer. It's fiction and a really beautiful exploration of how we can live everyday life while complete horrors and atrocities are happening in the world - how both things coexist.

A great thriller with an ending that I absolutely loved and one I would recommend for boys and girls both young and old. This is one of those stories that makes you question what is really important and will make you feel grateful for the things you have. A thought provoking and fun read that will take you on an emotional roller coaster and I'm looking forward to reading more from Andy Mulligan.

Wonderful - an exciting story with engaging characters told in a clever way with spare but lyrical prose. And underneath it all is a seam of social comment that isn't in the least bit tub-thumpy but that does bring awareness and a real understanding of life for dumpsite children across the world. Trash comes highly recommended by me, and I don't have time to say any more about it because I'm off to read it again. And after that, I might read it again. And then again. You read it too.

Full of mystery and intrigue, Trash is a page-turning tale of corruption and cunning and valour...For a relatively slim volume, this is a book with major impact. It's a book that forges an emotional bond with the reader; a book that, if you're anything like me, will draw you in and make you care - really care - about the outcome.Trash expands our worldview and pushes the limits of our experience. It's gripping and humbling and filled with lifelike characters you'll take to your heart. It's an amazing journey. I loved it, and I'd urge anyone to pick up a copy. This one's unforgettable.

I absolutely loved this book! A great storyline that will keep you hooked...The characters and their situation stayed with me for a long time after I had finished this book and I think that everybody should read this amazing, awe-inspiring, thought-provoking novel!

Every now and then a book sneaks up on the unsuspecting public, with very little fanfare, and hits you where it hurts the most - in the heart. Trash is one such book

Andy Mulligan has moved from the English countryside to a Latin American slum for his follow up to the school story Ribblestrop. TRASH is a thriller with moral weight and a complex structure..... Without ever moralising, Mulligan raises issues of corruption, poverty, waste and excess in an exciting, but also grimly sad tale.

Headlong and heart-stopping, this is an adventure you just can't put down.

Get Trash and get reading.

If you read one book this year, just a single one, make sure you read Trash...it is a book which you will enjoy reading, where you will learn things and which will make you think. We definitely need more books like this.

There is danger, and action, and periods of lying low- the tension is well developed and the climax gloriously appropriate. This was a very exciting read, and I certainly recommend it.

An extremely good book

Trash is such a heartfelt and poignant book to read. It makes you think about injustice and poverty. It makes you realise how different your own life is to so many other peoples all across the world. But above all, it is a gripping mystery which keeps you guessing until the very end.

Trash is, quite simply, one of the best books of the year. The buzz about it is incredible and it really does live up to the hype. It's a truly unique novel and I can guarantee you won't have read anything like it before. It will stay with you for weeks after reading - I still haven't forgotten one detail and I can't help but keep rereading it. The story is so complete and perfectly executed; you can't get to the end of this one without being moved...Mulligan has such a beautiful way with words and a great turn of phrase, everything flows so perfectly and it's so hard to put Trash down half way through the story. As soon as the pace slows enough for you to catch your breath you're rocketing forward again. Brilliant. Truly exciting stuff I can assure you.

This isn't a comfortable book, in the sense that it doesn't hide behind its fiction. These three boys live an upsetting life, and this is true of children in Latin-American countries. We are forced to address this issue throughout and I read the book humbled and very keen to read more from Andy Mulligan. If you want a book that will stay with you and mean something to you, then I would highly recommend this.

a heart capturing tale

In alternating and tightly paced points of view, supplemented by occasional other voices, the boys relate the intrigue in which they're quickly enmeshed. It all adds up to a cracker of a thriller. , a zippy and classic briefcase-full-of-money thrill ride.

This is an intriguing teenage read with some important environmental messages in it.

There is so much to admire in this story that it is hard to know where to start! ... It is not often that such important messages are wrapped up in such a genuinely thrilling adventure.

Its appeal lies in its ability to make you fall in love with the characters, and assist them on an exciting, unpredictable journey of hopes and dreams.

Andy Mulligan has created something stunning, it's beautifully written, captivating and very entertaining. I love how you never know what is going to happen until it's actually happened - bits and pieces being revealed as the story continues. Each moment has been placed with care on Mulligan's part and makes for a fantastic reading experience.

Bernardo is the most touching hero, though Raphael, in Andy Mulligan's Trash, would give him a run for his money. Living and working on a mountain of rubbish, Raphael finds a small bag that the police are after. With only their wits to help them, Raphael and his two friends go on the run in an exciting thriller about justice and courage pitted against ruthless corruption that takes readers into perilous places and prepares them for Oliver Twist.

Regardless, Trash is a book everyone should read. I mean it - everyone! No one can read this and say he (or she) did not take anything away from it. Andy Mulligan's Trash is one of those books that shows a picture of exactly how life is in places we don't know, but we should care about.

Thought-provoking, uplifting and hopeful, this is a book that lifts readers into an entirely different world.

...Trash by Andy Mulligan, which is a(n)...inventive story of three friends living on a rubbish site discovering a leather bag full of secrets and clues they have to solve before the baddies get them...This is great stuff: taut, plausible and thought-provoking.

...intriguing mystery...the descriptions are brutal and graphic...Exciting and fast moving as the story is, it also tugs at your heartstrings and reminds the reader that there are many young people for whom this way of life is reality. Unmissable!

English teacher Andy Mulligan has produced a rip-roaring adventure, Trash, for aged nine-plus, featuring three street boys who discover a key that unlocks a gripping mystery.

What could have been glum and preachy is actually a brilliant book I cannot recommend highly enough.

This is a powerful and gripping story that takes us into some painful places, but makes us believe that transformation is possible - that the vulnerable and weak can sometimes triumph against a whole system. I would very highly recommend it.

And finally a novel for young readers, Trash by Andy Mulligan, a life-affirming story told in multiple voices and set in the slums and rubbish heaps of Manila. Often funny, more often very moving, this is one of the treasures of 2010's young adult market.

A humbling scenario, all too recognisable around the world.

Trash, a novel about children in a lawless Third-World country, has been dropped from the Blue Peter Book Awards shortlist because of worries that a police interrogation scene involving torture might upset younger readers. What's the problem? Children's appetite for a gruesome read knows no bounds. Havn't the Blue Peter bods ever heard of Hansel and Gretel, Struwelpeter, or a young chap by the name of Harry Potter?

While readers will delight in the excitement and adventure of this story, they will also learn about the poverty and difficulties faced by many children throughout the world and about the consequences of corruption in government.

Read it, then read it to your child.

One of the most exciting and original novels of the year...It's a tight, thrilling story, told from various characters' perspectives and has a 'Slumdog', ­feel-good pulse beating through it. A genuine treasure find.