A well constructed debut written with maturity and style.

Set against the backdrop of youth on the brink of adulthood, and capturing the contrasts of the haves versus the have-nots, Emily Gillmor Murphy's You and I is an assured debut that will transport you straight to the roller coaster experience of growing up and falling in love.

Curtis Sittenfeld has a knack for capturing characters so vividly it's uncanny...brilliantly evokes small-town Eighties adolescence...the gripping denouement is expertly carried out.

Wise and empathetic, this is a book with a great sense of humour and an even bigger heart.

Sittenfeld's debut Prep was one of the best novels about adolescence written this century, and it is here, when dealing with the competitve world of teenage girls, that Sittenfeld is at her best in Sisterland...Like Kate Akinson with her recent Life After Life, Sittenfeld is a reliably realistic (if slightly dreamy) novelist who has here tackled a somewhat far-fetched concept outside her normal range and displayed impressive comfort in doing so.

Most people I know who have read anything by Curtis sittenfeld would read anything else the woman wrote, me included...Suddenly, trivial details become exquisite insights into class, entitlement, love and your place in the world...Fans will instantly be swept along by Sittenfeld's confident, page-turning writing and sharp eye.

A joy to read...[for] Sittenfeld's ability to get under the skin of complicated, contradictory characters, capturing the anxieties, challenges and compromises of everyday life, love and parenthood so that ... you will find yourself nodding at the day-to-day dynamics and thinking, "Yes, that's exactly how it is."

Dazzlingly original, this absorbing book, which is at heart about family ties, fizzes with energy and will grip you to the last page.

Will this be a novel turning on supernatural powers and a natural disaster or something else altogether? Without giving the end away one can say that it is more than anything a wonderful anatomy of family life.

Engrossing.

An intelligent, quietly devastating roller coaster of a read.

Sittenfeld’s confident no-frills style belies the complexities of her characters and their relationships.

The questions it raises about self-fulfilling prophecies remain compelling...a modern American fable about tempting fate.

Novelists get called master storytellers all the time, but Sittenfeld really is one.

Psychologically vivid...Sisterland is a testament to the author's growing depth and assurance as a writer.

A must-read: the best dissection of a life spent among small children I've ever read.

This assured and confident novel successfully combines the high-concept fantasy of Bewitched with the high-brow realism of Updike or Tyler

Fans will be swept along by Sittenfeld's confident, page-turning writing

A novel that deals with the immigrant experience and torn identity is nothing new; what justifies the inclusion of We Need New Names on the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize is NoViolet Bulawayo’s command of Darling’s captivating voice, as she and her friends race through Paradise – “When we hit the bush we are already flying, scream-singing like the wheels in our voices will make us go faster” – a siren call of life and laughter more powerful than the hardships that blight her childhood.

When a novel is praised by Helon Habila and Oprah Winfrey, you have to sit up

NoViolet Bulawayo has created a world that lives and breathes - and fights, kicks, screams and scratches, too. She has clothed it in words and given it a voice at once dissonant and melodic, utterly distinct

NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names is an exquisite and powerful first novel, filled with an equal measure of beauty and horror and laughter and pain. The lives (and names) of these characters will linger in your mind, and heart, long after you're done reading the book. No Violet Bulawayo is definitely a writer to watch

I knew this writer was going to blow up. Her honesty, her voice, her formidable command of her craft -- all were apparent from the first page.

I was bowled over... by NoViolet Bulawayo's shatteringly good first novel, We Need New Names

NoViolet Bulawayo is a powerful, authentic, nihilistic voice - feral, feisty, funny - from the new Zimbabwean generation that has inherited Robert Mugabe's dystopia

A work of gritty naturalism

Witty... ebullient... heartbreaking... our feisty heroine's sparkle never dims

A truthful, profound snapshot of the kind of life that often gets overlooked. Moving, fresh, enlightening. A fantastic novel

A fresh, engaging take on the relationship between rich and poor

A bittersweet coming-of-age tale of displacement during the southern African nation's 'lost decade'

A tale of our time, a powerful condemnation of global inequality from the point of view of a 10-year-old in impossible circumstances... a stunning piece of literary craftsmanship

Bulawayo, whose prose is warm and clear and unfussy, maintains Darling's singular voice throughout, even as her heroine struggles to find her footing. Her hard, funny first novel is a triumph.

Wonderfully, this is a novel whipped with the complexities of African identities in a post-colonial and globalised world and its most compelling theme is that of contemporary displacement, a theme that will resonate with many readers

This is a young author to watch

This is a very readable tale, thanks to some excellent writing and its central character: a likeable heroine in a difficult world

We Need New Names is a distinct and hyper-contemporary treatment of the old You Can’t Go Home Again mould, and the book has more than enough going for it to easily graduate from the Booker longlist to the final six

deeply felt and fiercely written first novel

Bulawayo's novel may scream Africa, but her deft and often comic prose captures memories and tastes, among them the bitterness of disappointment, that transcend borders

Bulawayo excels... there is an inevitable nod to Achebe and the verbal delights and child's-eye view of the world is redolent of The God of Small Things. Otherwise, the magic is all Bulawayo's own

Proof again that the Caine prize for African writers really knows how to pick a winner… [It’s] a tour de force. Ten-year-old Darling is an unforgettable and necessary new voice: add her to the literary cannon

This brilliant novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

An exceptionally fine novel, as powerful and memorable as Coetzee's magnificent Disgrace... We need new novels like this – authentic, original and cathartic

There is no doubt that a new star of African female writing is truly born. The one-to-watch

Follow ten-year-old Darling from the Paradise shantytown to America in this searing indictment of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe

Shocking, often heartbreaking – but also pulsing with energy

A poignant, witty, original and lyrical coming of age story

Talented and ambitious

A powerful fictional condemnation of global inequality

From the opening chapter…the first-person narrative achieves a breathtaking vibrancy, ambition and pathos

Deserved all the publicity it got