Its take on things of the spirit, somehow both rollicking and profoundly calm, comes complete with a vision of benign energy that opened on me after the book was closed and continues to resonate months afterwards. How did she do it? This masterful, sleight-of-hand, open-souled and anti-elitist generosity, unprecedented in the English novel right now, is like an injection of vitality. Ali Smith, Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year
A wonderful twisted comedy Observer
Full of invention and experiment, Barkers comic energy is irresistible The Sunday Telegraph
I have never read anything like it Barker is some kind of genius The book is textured, playfully philosophical and increasingly moving. I read the last 150 pages at a sitting with my heart and mind stirred Observer
Nicola Barker is an author who transforms the mundane into the magisterial Sounds a bit heavy going? Fear not, its also a delightful romantic comedy More than the mere sum of its parts, its a novel that propels you helplessly forward into the light Independent
This novel which is, among other things, an account of how two irritable, damaged and eccentric adults fall in love is a riot Prospect
Exhilarating she is an author whose comic energy is infectious Daily Mail
Mind-spinning Independent on Sunday
Hardy rebelled against Englishness, Barker exults in it Guardian
Lie back and allow yourself to be carried away by Barkers bouts of brilliant writing and her extraordinary flights of imagination The Times
The antic virtuosity of Barker's prose style carries a kind of visionary intensity of its own The sheer blethering strangeness of life thickens into a kind of metaphysical dimension Literary Review
The banshees Barker summons up in this delightful novel cast a magic spell over her readers Tatler