The theme of Prayers for the Stolen is the wanton violence inflicted on women and the destruction of communities as a result of the drug trade in Mexico, but Clement's eye for the revealing detail, the simple poetry of her language and the visceral authenticity of her characters turn that deadening reality into a compelling, tragically beautiful novel

A moving novel narrated by an open-hearted teenage girl growing up in the borderlands of Mexico controlled entirely by the drug cartels. Lyrical, disturbing and not without optimism, this work deserved far more acclaim when published last year

Prayers For The Stolen is stark and brutal, but not without happiness. “Mexico is a warren of hidden women”, says Jennifer Clement. This book is a way of seeing them

Every sentence in Prayers for the Stolen is direct, potent, unexpected; twisting on the page like a knife in the gut… This work also gives us all of a novel's pleasures – a story laden with significance and drama and meaning, a keen feeling of relationship between reader and characters, a fully realised world through which we may roam

[Clement] shows the black comedy in the details and the emergency in the broader picture

Bleak, but beautifully written… Clement's prose is luminous and startlingly original. The sentences are spare and stripped back, but brilliantly manage to contain complex characters and intense emotional histories in a few vividly poetic words. Her portrayal of modern Mexico is heartbreaking; a dangerous and damaging environment for women, but her portrait of Ladydi and her refusal to be one of the lost girls is defiantly bold and bravely uncompromising

Ladydi’s irreverent voice sings off the page and there are laughs to be had as she relates her mother’s drunken wisdom and seeks to find a way to live

Despite its violent premise, this is a darkly comic read with one of the funniest, most touching narrators in years, highlighting a very real issue in a remarkably fresh way. An inspiring story of female resilience

With Ladydi, Jennifer Clement has created a feisty teenage heroine who is an unforgettable character

This book has attracted a huge amount of attention and deservedly so

The brutal background of this terrific novel is only too real; Clement brings a modern tragedy to vivid life

Kaleidoscopic... Glints with occasional shards of comedy as black as the charcoal used to obscure female beauty

This is a harrowing, compelling story, and will stay with you for a very long time

This is an illuminating tale of womanhood in rural Mexico and a stunning portrait of a hopeful heroine in the face of adversity

This is a rollercoaster of a novel that will make you laugh, wince and gasp. We look forwards to reading more of Clement’s work

Lyrical, disturbing and not without optimism

Clement's first-person telling of the story through her spirited narrator…in spare prose delivers emotional immediacy and demands engagement.

The most enchanting journey I’ve taken in a long, long time, and the most important. Prayers For The Stolen is a hand-guided tour through a ruthless true corner of our century, with characters so alive they will burrow into your heart like worms. Stunningly written, magically detailed, you see, smell and taste the action on every page, feel every foible, and miss the candour of these funny, achingly human voices long after you put them down. As the heroine herself might say: not something to read but to lick off a plate.

Prayers For the Stolen is a magnificent story, as filled with a wisdom so dense and ancient as to seem almost unbearable. One wants to turn away, but cannot. It’s a mesmerizing read, illustrative of the idea that even traces of beauty, deeply felt, can help carry a traveler through the harshest landscape, or the harshest life.

A superbly crafted book

Close’s wry wit and deadpan delivery...make this debut novel a treat to read. . . . An original confection with echoes of The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing and a dollop of Sex and the City

Jennifer Close’s debut, Girls in White Dresses, follows a group of young women doing all the things they know they shouldn’t—falling for one’s boss, dating gay men—all while drinking far too many mimosas at other people’s weddings

Funny... These stories will resonate with readers in the throes of the quarter-life churn

What a delight! The young women in this hugely appealing book are charming, funny, rueful, poignant - just like their creator, in other words, one of the freshest and most appealing new voices in fiction. I can't wait for more work from Jennifer Close

The only way to express my love for Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close is to tell you that this is the one book that I will be recommending over and over again to all of my friends. I laughed, I cried, I nodded knowingly as the characters waded their way through the hits and misses of their twenties and thirties. I can't remember the last time I loved a book as much as this one

Girls In White Dresses is a dark, funny, intimate romp through boyfriends, first apartments, and great friendships - but beneath the surface lurks the jealousy, disappointment, and love that didn't quite end up the way you thought it would. Jennifer Close's brilliant, deadpan humor made me laugh so hard my own roommate thought I was nuts

Girls in White Dresses is about a group of smart, funny, unapologetically grouchy, always-hungover female friends who kvetch their way through one another's weddings and showers, stare blearily at one another's offspring, sometimes barely tolerate one another's men, but nonetheless have one another's backs through thick and thin. Jennifer Close has written an unsentimental, frank novel about female friendship - its lifelong loyalties and unconditional love

I recently read a book which explores the same post-university landscape that Girls handles; Jennifer Close's Girls In White Dresses. Like Girls, it is often funny, moving and true to (my and other straight women of a certain age living in a big city) life

Delightful… Sharply and sparely written … a great debut

A quiet sense of emotional tragedy, sharp observational humour and writing so economically precise you long to read every sentence twice

Perfects the intimate, easy style that makes reading her such a pleasure

The worlds she creates are so absorbing and believable; she taps into our innate curiosity about people just like ourselves

What she does, in the course of this novel, is show that the simplest family stories often have complex roots and unlikely outcomes. This is a book full of surprises, and Tyler is adept at the great revelation that both startles and throws what has come before into a whole new light

A warm, wise and funny book

A believable and wise read

The texture of everyday experience transmuted into art

[A] wonderful book

When it comes to painting a loving, funny and yet never simplistic portrait of American family life, Anne Tyler is, and always has been, the great mistress

There is no limit to the superlatives that Tyler inspires

With A Spool of Blue Thread, the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist is on typically fine form

Sincerely and carefully told

This is a book that explores moral and psychological ambiguities with extraordinary subtlety

Deftly written with skilful characterisation... A master of conversation

A Spool of Blue Thread does an exquisite job

This is a novel to cherish

Wonderful new novel

A truly delightful read

Ms. Tyler has a knack for turning sitcom situations into something far deeper and more moving

A moving, well-crafted reflection on life and death and the relationships that sustain us through both

How can it be so wonderful!... Tyler remains among the best chroniclers of family life

Astonishingly adept

Tyler describes so accurately the frailties, turmoil and love of family life

No one does family sagas quite like Anne Tyler

Mundane yet magical, thus pure Tyler

Anne Tyler paints a large-scale portrait on a small-scale canvas and does it beautifully

In many ways this novel is a culmination of all those that have gone before it; it combines a multitude of themes and never fails to exact humour alongside the more sombre task of delving into topical issues such as sexuality, relationships and ageing

Absolutely wonderful, a work of genius

It's so rich in detail and reality, so simple, but so compelling. I wept

Is as good as anything she has ever written

Another insightful study of family life. It may be familiar territory for the writer, but she commands it absolutely

One to read on a family holiday

Her gift for producing what seems less like fiction than actuality works wonders

Heartwarming

Highly reccommended

May be her best yet, though, to be honest, this is what I always tend to say after reading the latest Anne Tyler.

Superbly accomplished, perceptive and funny, tugged forward by suspended revelations to its hurricane climax

[Tyler] writes so sparingly and yet her books are dense with the complexities of human emotions

Pure pleasure

[Tyler] has the rapier wit of a true satirist

Anne Tyler is a magician: what she does seems so simple and et it weaves a compelling spell

Utterly absorbing, heartbreaking and endearing

Tyler explores the simmering resentment that often underpins familial relationships, as well as the elusive nature of the American Dream

A book that is shot through with random misfortune, but which takes infinite pleasure in the detail of everyday family life.

Rivalries flare between siblings and secrets unravel, as Tyler shines a brilliant light on our fundamental relationships and the span of life.

Since the characters are actual, flawed human beings, it makes the story unbelievably relatable.

One of the greatest storytellers alive, whose characters arrive on the page like human beings, things happen to them, they react to these things, and then life continues

A stunning novel about three generations of a family that perfectly captures the fights, petty irritations and deep connections between them

A rich and perceptive examination of uneven family relationships