There's a poignant air of nostalgia about the sections set in the women's younger day, and you'll warm to the sharply-drawn characters. Astute and witty.

Clever, intriguing, chilling - and utterly impossible to put down. Tina Seskis is proving herself to be master of the twist

Six friends, one reunion, one gigantic mess. One of the best books to read this April

A chilling tale of university friends 25 years later . . . the tragic fallout of a summer reunion will make you wish you could read that bit faster

This dark whodunit explores just how complex friendships can be

Autobiographical, open-handed and endlessly engaging.

Wood scrutinises devastatingly simple ideas. He does the work of the novelist in making his reader examine these concepts anew through gorgeously accomplished, apt language.

I can’t wait to read [it].

A hugely enjoyable journey though the riches of [Wood’s] extraordinarily well-stocked mind.

His [Wood’s] concept of literature is generous, inclusive and fundamentally democratic.

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.

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

Moran also writes brilliantly about music, and especially about what music can do. She carries Johanna through this novel with incredible verve, extravagant candour, and a lot of heart. Johanna is … a wonderful heroine. A heroine who cares, who bravely sallies forth and makes things happen, who gives of herself, who is refreshingly unashamed. She’s so confident, it’s glorious

an entertaining read, with Moran in fine voice – hilarious, wild, imaginative and highly valuable…Moran is in danger of becoming to female masturbation what Keats was to Nightingales…

rude, big-hearted, wise-cracking novel…so filthy she’ll make you blush

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

Ali Smith is a master of language. Vigorous, vivid writing that is Ali Smith incarnate

Ingeniously conceived, gloriously inventive

Dizzyingly ambitious . . . endlessly artful, creating work that feels infinite in its scope and intimate at the same time. [A] swirling panoramic

Brilliant . . . the sort of death-defying storytelling acrobatics that don't seem entirely possible

Having read this now twice, in both directions so to speak, I've decided - and I do not write this flippantly - that Ali Smith is a genius

Approaches the world as only a novel can. The book moves not so much in a straight line as in a twisting helix pattern . . . delivers the heat of life and the return of beauty in the face of loss

A unique conversation between past and present

Wildly inventive . . . lyrical, fresh