How to Be Somebody Else

Rezensionen / Stimmen

A stunning novel. Remarkable and real. Every single line is supercharged with a kind of cerebral eroticism, a zinging inventive intelligence. The sentences buzz and hum -- Samantha Harvey, author of Orbital Sharp and entertaining * Daily Mail * Impressive... A book founded on the anxiety that undermines our drive towards attachment and stability, and it thrives on a constant sense of slippage and precarity, a jumpy exploration of what it might feel like to cede control, and what might take its place * Observer * Pountney has an admirable clarity of voice and her book is consistently impressive... Intelligent, confident and original * Times Literary Supplement * How to Be Somebody Else has literary oomph... What sets this debut apart is the way it sustains its sparky style to the last page without stinting on the serious stuff * Sunday Times * Brutal and brilliant, in luscious prose, How to Be Somebody Else shows us what happens when life starts to unfurl -- Annie Lord, author of Notes on Heartbreak Unsettling and original -- Tessa Hadley, author of After the Funeral So sharp and well observed. I loved the wry, understated humour, and how perceptive the book is about female desire. In its exploration of a woman trying to make sense of herself it is moving without being sentimental, and clever without seeming to try too hard -- Rebecca Wait, author of I'm Sorry You Feel That Way Compulsive. It makes its moves with such assurance that it's hard to believe this is Pountney's first novel. A wild mess of sex and feeling is here given beautiful form -- Adam Thirlwell, author of The Future Future A novel of graceful sentences and perfectly-lit vignettes, often obliquely funny; the minutiae and questionable decisions of a newly reimagined life, observed at just the right distance for us to see the whole and the details at once -- Holly Gramazio, author of The Husbands