Definitely 'best books of 2022' material

A funny, touching celebration of second chances

Smart and offbeat funny: think Maria Semple

Warm, funny and a brilliant read

An endearing, joyful tale about finding (and accepting) yourself

A poignant and compelling exploration of identity, love and what it means to be a mother. Mika and Penny swept me along on their emotional and unforgettable journey, leaving me uplifted yet bereft when I turned the final page. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, this is a total joy of a read

Touching and heartfelt ... captures the essence of mothers and daughters, the nuances that make a family, and where we've come from and where we're going. Sharp and brimming with heart, this tender read will have you alternating between laughter and tears (the very best kind) and missing the characters long after the last page. Mika In Real Life is a sheer delight to read

With the offbeat humour and poignancy of Maria Semple and Kirsty Capes, this has the potential to be a big hit

Entertaining, funny and uplifting. Exploring identity, motherhood and second chances, it's one of the most life-affirming books to come out of 2022

I laughed, I cried and had the worst book hangover when I finished this gorgeous read

Mika's story is a beautiful exploration of the bond between mother and child - what we pass along, what we long for, and what we withhold. As Mika rescues herself from a downward spiral of heartbreak and loss, she weaves for us a primer on healing our broken relationships. A must read for anyone who's ever had a mother or been one

Tender and profound, Emiko Jean's writing had me laughing, crying, and cheering for Mika

Bighearted, sometimes bawdy, and always brave, Mika in Real Life explores the inescapable bonds between mothers and daughters, the enduring families by friendship that we make, and the weight of secrets that keep us from creating ourselves. This hilarious, tender, and very real novel is for every human trying to figure it out-basically, all of us

A wonderful, life-affirming story about second chances, parenthood and love. By turns tender, funny, and deeply romantic, I was rooting for Mika, Penny and Thomas

Buckle up for an emotional rollercoaster ride . . . A genuinely moving read

A poignant coming-of-age story

This unsettling but gripping novel takes us deep into the mind of a woman living a shadowy half-life

Crucial reading for any young woman

Undeniably compelling and atmospheric... a poolside-worthy page-turner

A taut, tense novel... The Guest is a strong follow-up... Her [Cline's] prose is limpid and propulsive, sustaining an atmosphere of dread.

[An] arresting observational eye

Cline has a crime writer's gift for revelatory storytelling, ramping up tension like an HBO pro

A searing portrayal of the precariat? Or a slick summer thriller? The answer is: both . . . you won't be able to look away

Supremely readable... propulsive

A dream-like, foreboding novel and worthy follow-up to the sensation The Girls

The talented Ms. Cline . . . Her prose is drifty and wire-taut, easy on the eye, with an awful undertow of unease that never lets up. The pathology brilliantly observed by The Guest would not feel so edgy if it were not perilously close to an aspirational ideal

I loved every moment of The Guest: the intensity, the control, the atmosphere, the psychological escalation, the astonishing social observation, the profound and devastating visions of the void achieved with flicks of the wrist, the way it lets nobody off the hook and yet is not without deep humanity

Heady scent of hotsummers and dark secrets

The wealthy clique depicted in Cline's unsettling second novel is by turns boorish and menacing - but you won't be able to look away

A beach read that ticks all the boxes

[The Guest’s] atmosphere is equally apprehensive [as The Girls] and Cline’s eye for the fragility of insider-outsiders is as gimlet-sharp as before

The Guest… [is] as relentlessly spellbinding as her debut

Either/Or is extremely funny and delightfully ludic, as it probes the very act of reading from the point of view of confused university student Selin.

I was desperately looking forward to Elif Batuman's Either/Or, and it more than lived up to it.

Re-encountering Selin...felt like being reunited with an old friend.

Hilarious.

I greatly enjoyed the comic zing of Elif Batuman's delightful Either/Or

Witty, intelligent and funny... [Selin's] inner monologue is addictive enough to read a thousand more pages of, and I can only cross my fingers that this isn't the last instalment of the series.

Just as funny and self-aware and clever as The Idiot.

Funny, wry and insightful

Laugh out loud…hilarious and thoughtful