MixedThe Times (UK)Ply...has some tricks up its sleeve, but its best idea — the one implied by its title and the abrupt shift in perspective — arrives late. This idea is so big and offers so many narrative possibilities that you might end up lamenting all that time spent running round the city with the pincher and her pals during the first half of the book ... There are also shades of young adult fiction in those early scenes that may dissatisfy readers drawn in by Diaz’s Pulitzer credentials ... It’s possible that by unmooring himself from history, Diaz has given himself a little too much freedom ... Ply seems intent on telling multiple stories at once and can’t fully commit to any of them.
PositiveThe Times (UK)Air is not a capital-F fantasy novel but an exploration of the role of fantasy in modern life more generally ... This has long been a favourite subject of Kracht’s ... Read it again (it’s short) and Air is revealed to be a puzzle with a certain logic ... If the fans Kracht picked up with Eurotrash are willing to embark on a very different kind of journey with him, they will almost certainly discover something worthwhile in Air. They may just have to read it twice.
