PositiveSydney Morning Herald (AU)Scaffolded by detailed research into its time and place ... As we inhabit new perspectives, we learn new details that add depth and texture – from secrets revealed, to different ways of experiencing the world ... McFarlane’s novel meditates on how select perspectives are captured, crafted and preserved as culturally meaningful through art.
Pip Williams
RaveThe Sydney Morning Herald (AUS)... inventive, absorbing ... Esme is a literary heroine with an idiosyncratic appeal that rivals Jo March ... her role model and constant companion is her lexicographer father, now amiably wedded to the dictionary. Their companionable relationship of equals is one of this novel\'s great pleasures: in a wonderful observed detail, he is that rare kind of man who rinses his own cup at the sink ... [an] absorbing, quietly revolutionary novel ... Pip Williams combines the storytelling scale and intimate detail of a 19th-century novel with the sensibility of now—and a cast of richly realised characters and relationships that are a pleasure to spend time with. And it has a rare quality that is, perhaps, especially valuable in this historical moment: it is deeply, intrinsically kind, without dipping into sentimentality. (There is conflict, but no villains. Even Esme\'s most infuriating antagonist is nuanced enough to glimpse another perspective at work.)
Sally Rooney
RaveThe Sydney Morning HeraldIn Normal People, Sally Rooney essentially gives us a field guide to relating to other humans – with the in-built pleasures of an exceptionally good literary romance.
