A disconcertingly funny book . . . both original and edgily entertaining

Vivid and spooky

Original and edgily entertaining. It confirms Abe as the best Japanese novelist (along with Shusaku Endo) since the deaths of Yukio Mishima and Yasunari Kawabata.

Love is altogether spellbinding... The whole book is audacious, richly layered and often comic, but ultimately deeply moving... Move over Socrates and watch an Irish master of dialogue at work.

So perfectly constructed it is hard to believe it is really just about two old school friends getting drunk, and drunker... [Love] seems to bottle what male friendship can be like.

Here is a paean to all things Irish. Fans of [Doyle] will be glad to follow old mates Davy and Joe through a pub crawl that is both elegiac and hilarious.

Sharp, funny... Easy to read, hard to forget.

A praise-song to the Irish pub... The reader is dropped into the familiar, perfect rhythm of Roddy Doyle's effortless dialogue...good humour and camaraderie.

He's a comic genius.

No one does boozy male regret better than Doyle, and he's on typically fluent form in this slow-burn tale of two old friends... A narrative engine that Doyle has perfected over decades.

Roddy Doyle might be our greatest poet of the pub... Love, his 11th novel, makes the pub not just the instrument but the object of affection. In structure, it is a bar crawl; in substance, it is a love letter.

Doyle puts feeling first in this novel by putting it last, in the final pages... In the end, you see that the sacred world of the two friends was lurking in all that preceded this final scene.

[A] witty, satisfying novel about male friendship, aging, and guilt... This one is a winner.

Love by Roddy Doyle weaves memory and fiction as two childhood friends reunite over pints and revisit the vagaries of their youth. Read it if you cry-laughed through The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe and tittered at Steve Coogan's The Trip.

Roddy Doyle has never lacked ambition, writing complex novels that appear straightforward: heavy on the dialogue, simple in the language, deep in the lives of ordinary working people... [Love's] effect is devastating.

Deeply moving... [Doyle is] an exceptionally gifted writer... Wonderful.

Doyle is so adept a writer... [Love is] exhilarating.

Doyle's fast-paced, dialogue-driven style is so real it feels like you're eavesdropping on the conversation. He captures the heartbreak and humour of long-term friendship exceptionally and ends the book with a tenderness that will take your breath away. It's wonderful.

There are frequent flashes of humour, always part of the fabric of Doyle's work, music references galore...and moments of poignant nostalgia, especially about the joy of falling in love for the first time... [Love is] tender, moving.

Roddy Doyle is one of the most recognisable faces - and voices - in Irish literature.

Fizzing dialogue...bawdy humour, nostalgia for times gone by, and a deeply moving ending.

A tangled and mesmeric novel that consists entirely of conversation which is about all the things that don't need to be spoken and the things that can't be said.

[A] tender, funny novel about love, loss and male friendship.

With each new novel, Roddy Doyle’s work grows deeper and more contemplative. Love is a profound examination of friendship, romantic confusion and mortality

A novel her fans are sure to love

A story of love, identity and belonging

Heartbreaking and humorous in equal measures

A bouncy, comedy drama. Funny, poignant and bursting with joie de vivre

A thought-provoking read . . . shows the true extent of motherly love

Dawn French moves between the aftermath of that fateful night and 18 years later, when the explosive impact of Hope's actions is finally felt

A heartfelt story, handled so carefully and empathetically

Because Of You is a tale told with warmth by a storyteller who never takes herself too seriously

Heartbreaking but redemptive, and lightened by French's trademark humour, this is a compelling read that will keep you poised between laughter and tears

A tantalising story of motherhood told with Dawn French's signature warmth

As ever, even in the darkest of times, Dawn has found humour to inject into her novel

A brilliant book

The life-affirming and unmissable new novel

A tale told with warmth

While Dawn French's latest novel contains a dash of humour, it's also heart-wrenching

A fabulous emotional tearjerker of a novel

Praise for Dawn French

Hilarious and brilliant

I adored According to YES. It's so different to anything I've read in forever, so charming, wise, brilliantly written. I loved it all

Witty and wise, it'll have you burning the midnight oil. A cracker

Very funny and packs an emotional clout. Brilliant!

An enlightening and feel-good read offering a fresh look at life and how to embrace it. Funny and enjoyable to the end

There is lots of fun to be had reading this book. It's impossible not to warm to Rosie, a funny and open-hearted woman who acts as a salve and comfort blanket for this unhappy, inhibited family. There's something quite joyous about the way she unashamedly romps her way through the novel, changing the lives of those around her for the better

Another hilarious novel!

French can spin a yarn . . . which sets According to YES apart. Think the vicar of Dibley, without the dog collar. YES YES YES indeed

Wise and poignant

Heart-warming