PositiveThe GuardianAdichie really begins to flex her muscles as a novelist: the sense of dislocation felt by both characters in two countries with wholly different histories and class structures is expertly rendered. She has an extraordinary eye for the telling nuance of social interaction within a particular kind of liberal elite … Adichie is particularly good at exposing the contradictory ebb and flow of America's painful attempts to reconcile itself with its recent past, when segregation still persisted in the south. She does so with a wryness and insight that never imposes itself on the flow of the story but which challenges the reader's assumptions with each carefully crafted sentence.
Elizabeth Strout
RaveThe GuardianWriting like this looks easy, but it isn’t. Strout’s style is all the more powerful for its understatement, and reminded me of both John Steinbeck and Anne Tyler – two other great observers of the interaction between internal and external landscapes, who also appreciate the value of simplicity over self-conscious floridity ... There is, in every chapter, a wrenching, beautiful dissonance between private desires and public obligations ... Strout shows compassion for her characters, but never sentimentality. Their stories are told with respect, nuance and a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue ... Strout is a brilliant chronicler of the ambiguity and delicacy of the human condition. Anything Is Possible is a wise, stunning novel. If there is a theme that unites these stories, it is the longing to be understood – arguably the most human desire of all.
