to describe [The Clasp] as a list of its parts does this intelligent, charming book a disservice. Its fast-paced, eventful plot is layered over a warm and insightful look at the intricacies of adult friendship

Sharp-nibbed…the take-home lessons in integrity and self-knowledge are winningly delivered

I took so much pleasure in every sentence of THE CLASP, fell so completely under the spell of its narrative tone--equal parts bite and tenderness, a dash of rue--and became so caught up in the charmingly dented protagonists and their off-kilter caper, that the book's emotional power, building steadily and quietly, caught me off-guard, and left me with a lump in my throat.

A touching but never sentimental portrait of a trio of quasi-adults turning into adult adults, this is one of those rare deeply literary books that also features -- a plot! From the shores of Florida to the coast of Normandy, wonderful, unforgettable things happen in this enormously hilarious novel. And they are written in a language so beautiful, I gnashed my teeth at Sloane Crosley's talent.

Sloane Crosley's debut novel is hilarious, insightful, and full of characters and situations that only Sloane Crosley could devise. The laugh-out-loud observations and dialogue that make her essays such a delight to read shine through in her fiction too. The Clasp is a gem.

I opened THE CLASP and immediately realized that I'd been waiting far too long for Sloane Crosley to write a novel. Crosley is a literary addiction. There is no substitute. She is curious. She is smart. She is hilarious and edgy and generous and impossible to stop reading. Moreover, she misses nothing. Her attention to the seemingly smallest details—material, social, psychological—reveal, as the pages turn, an intricately tooled world that is as familiar as it is dazzling and new.

Part comedy of manners, part adventure story, this is an inspired first novel…a blast from start to finish

It’s laugh-out-loud funny, heart-in-your-throat melancholy and manages to be a Parisian-set caper as well. Joy.

A sharp, witty coming of age tale – if you work on the principle that of age is now more likely to be 30 than 21

A huge hilarious pleasure from start to finish

Elegant storytelling

Perfect beach read, smart, funny and heartfelt.

An entertaining homage to Maupassant…There is barely a page of the novel that doesn’t glitter with some nugget of wit or wisdom

Crosley’s debut novel showcases much of the same razor-sharp wit as her New York Times bestselling essay collections … she nails it

A smart, witty read with a lot of heart

Brilliant writing and astutely drawn characters … I couldn’t put it down

[Crosley’s] prose is the literary equivalent of a light-as-air soufflé, made from recipes by Candace Bushnell and a young Donna Tartt … consistently witty … a real comic talent

Sharp and funny

A thing of pure joy…The Clasp is an absolute delight

Highly comic, highly affecting novel

Seriously impressive…as smart as it is funny

A novel with more verve and imagination than much of the plot-light fare that typically gets the high-literary treatment, a story that shares at least some DNA with ambitious capers like Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch and Marisha Pessl’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics.

Two lonely people go about their day in London in this typically Kennedian and utterly wonderful novel… but they find their way towards each other in an agonising love story that’s all about morality and decency in a careless world… Kennedy is a stand-up comedian, and observational comedy runs through this novel in interior monologues that are heartbreakingly familiar and laugh-out-loud sad. Her sentences are some of the best in modern fiction (there’s a springer spaniel called Hector with “black, bewildered ears… [that] made him look as if he’d recently heard dreadful news and still hadn’t adjusted.”) and reading her prose is like eating those fizzy sweets that are both sweet and sour make you wince at the back of your mouth – then go back for more… It’s gorgeous.

Consistently raw and powerful… emotionally exhausting… But there’s a lot to be said for a novel which sets so much store by “affection and tenderness”, and in which the emotional peaks and the possibilities of redemption and renewal are marked by the simple holding of hands.

I love, love, love the Rushdie – I think it’s my favourite of his… The fantasy elements are just magical and, of course, it’s gorgeously written.

An apocalyptic battle between reason and unreason, good and evil, light and darkness, with all the bells and whistles of a Hollywood blockbuster.

Not only a beautifully written satire-as-fairytale but the subject matter is bang on trend… That Rushdie should still be writing so potently and still be continuing to push back the frontiers, when he could easily pull up a deck chair and languish on the frontiers he already owns is wonderful, inspirational and profoundly (but only in the best way) terrifying… 10/10, Master.

Ambitious, smart and dark fable that is full of rich and profound notions about human nature.

I like to think how many readers are going to admire the courage of this book, revel in its fierce colours, its boisterousness, humour and tremendous pizzazz, and take delight in its generosity of spirit.