An astonishing and beautiful read that is just dripping with atmosphere.

LaBan’s debut – reminiscent of Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why – compassionately illustrates the tragedy of withholding love and friendship, or worse, never having the courage to seek them out.

Tim’s first-person voice is a compelling combination of compassion and analysis, revealing his lifelong challenge of albinism, the unexpected romantic triangle he enters into, and choices that set in motion unfortunate events. . . . A playful element infuses the story as tragic themes described in English class play out in the characters' dramas, adding texture to this strong debut.

Debut novelist LaBan takes us into the private school culture as well as the heads of two charming yet very different teenage boys and their parallel love stories . . . Nonexistent parents, well-intentioned, likeable faculty on the periphery, elaborate dorm rooms with overstuffed closets, even the romantic, snow-covered campus all contribute to a setting that adds to the story’s heft and intrigue.

This novel is relatable and unusually gripping, even for an older reader - full of slings and arrows and outrageous fortune. Readers should find themselves fairly ripping through the pages to uncover the mystery of what happened, and why . . . Romantic love, hard work, loyalty, friendship, suffering: Like the great tragedies that inspired the novel, it's all here. LaBan's take on adolescent life is rendered in the sweet, intelligent tradition of John Irving, but without any of the prep-school genre's self-satisfaction. And in the end, this story is about more than personal failure (and triumph), or the nature of tragedy. It's also a story about art and how it can redeem us.

This coming-of-age story is unique in its telling and its lack of hurriedness. Laban’s heroes are meant to be cheered and pitied, and the way their stories are handled is masterful. With plot and character construction similar to those of writers like John Green, and a hearkening to stories like The Dead Poet’s Society, this novel deserves a place on most library shelves.

Even though it's only January, The Tragedy Paper is already one of my favourite reads of 2013.

This book is an intriguing, mysterious story of loneliness, heartbreak, and how you can learn from others’ mistakes.

The Tragedy Paper has the earmarks of what will one day be a true literary classic . . . LaBan brings to life a rich cast of characters, each struggling with their own definitions of a 'tragedy' and the trials of adolescence and growing up.

Escape with this mystery that will keep you searching for the answer to: what really happened? . . . This page-turner is told from Tim and Duncan's perspectives as Duncan finds the key to writing the biggest, most scandalous Tragedy Paper of all Irving School history. Trust us when we say a school assignment has never been this intense!

The story is perfect . . . the writing is simply outstanding . . . this was an absolutely gorgeous story to read.

The book is magnificent, understated, full of gentle mind grenades

Funny and rich and dirty and taut and original. I wanted it to be my biography, but there was way more warmth and invention in it than you could fit in a lifetime

Funny, sad, bewildering and painfully honest, it’s a must-read for all fans of Joe Dunthorne’s Submarine

Funny and true

What a beautifully written first novel. Joe Stretch has a way with words that is intensely captivating… Superb on adolescence, the Nineties, and more

A consistently amusing hymn to unfulfilled potential which grows more involving and poignant as it goes on

Jim is such a likeable character, unflinchingly recounting in all his worst failures and humiliations

A funny, wryly observed coming-of-age novel, it will strike a chord with anyone who grew up during the Noughties. It’s full of quirky period details and Jim is an engaging narrator