Highly original. Infinitely charming. And ever so touching.

A perfectly sustained novel (a tribute to Stephen Snyder's smooth translation); like a note prolonged...a pause enabling us to peer intently into the lives of its characters...has all the charm and restraint of any by Ishiguro and the whimsy of Murakami

Beautiful...the extraordinary Yoko Ogawa casts her spell. Never before has the beauty of maths been so lovingly explored...a tender, gentle book...Ogawa is an original and establishes a world in a paragraph..This is a tale which will leave the reader gasping...Hopefully more of her exciting, thoughtful fiction is heading our way.

Its unnamed characters suggest archetype or myth; its rapturous concentration on the details of weather and cooking provide a satisfyingly textured foundation

Alive with mysteries both mathematical and personal, this novel has the pared-down elegance of an equation

Ogawa's crystalline prose heightens the simple elegance of this tale of lost souls looking for comfort and shelter - and finding it in the timeless symmetry of mathematical equations.

there’s so much real feeling too. Johanna’s vulnerability and bravado, as she moves out of her world and falls in love is beautifully done’ or ‘ and running through it all, with a visceral power that most writers should envy, is the shame and grinding anxiety of being poor

This isn’t a sleek, slick novel, but it is a rambunctious, raw-edged, silly-profound and deeply relatable guide to what your worst mistakes can teach you, and it has much to offer teenagers both actual and inner

I have so much love for Caitlin Moran

Binge-read all of #HowToBuildAGirl in one sitting. Even missed supper. A first

She writes with breathtaking brio…Moran shows her shining soul — which is even more remarkable than her wit — when she writes about being young, looking for love and the utter vileness of the class system . . .almost every page has something on it which makes you smile, makes you sad or makes you think — often all three at once, in one sentence

A riotous read with jokes galore cut through with lightly handled serious observations about the nature of poverty and the challenges of emerging female sexuality. It is also stunningly rude…

Exuberant, funny coming-of-age tale with a highly-literate, resourceful Wolverhampton teen at its centre. As building girls goes this is one alternative instruction manual every woman should read

The self-conscious agonies of precocious yet sensitive Dolly ring painfully true, while the witty sex scenes, boozy anecdotes and one-liners make this great fun…

An exuberant coming of age novel in DMs and ripped tights

So funny it hurts. How to Build a Girl is Adrian Mole meets Fear of Flying. I predict they’ll be tears a plenty – both of laughter and excruciating recognition – on sun-loungers this summer

Moran is a brilliantly funny writer, and How To Build A Girl is brimful of jokes

This very British (and very naughty) coming-of-age novel will have you in literal hysterics!

terrific - funny, honest and deliciously rude

This is going to be a bestseller…A sharp, hilarious and controversial read

I laughed aloud at this funny, outrageous story of a girl from Wolverhampton council estate who reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde

as irreverent, amusing and vibrant as Moran herself

rowdy and fearless ... sloppy, big-hearted and alive in all the right ways

Ms. Moran['s] ... funny and cheerfully dirty coming-of-age novel has a hard kernel of class awareness ... sloppy, big-hearted and alive in all the right ways.

This is going to be a bestseller…A sharp, hilarious and controversial read

Original, insightful