The Awkward Age

Reviews / Votes

It's beautifully written -- Victoria Hislop * Good Housekeeping * A very smart, soulful, compelling, elegantly written domestic novel -- Nick Hornby * Observer * Francesca Segal is incisive on modern lives, penetrating and thoughtful - and yet always joyfully entertaining and stylishly readable. * Naomi Alderman * Segal's wit and intelligence are entirely her own and the moral dilemmas of her characters could not be more modern... Segal has a superb eye for the lies that the middle-aged lovers tell themselves, and they are jolted back to reality when it all goes spectacularly wrong. It is nearly a tragedy, but not quite; she's just too funny -- Kate Saunders * The Times * Elegant... an entertaining look at the messy business of trying to be in a family in emotionally trying circumstances... Irresistible -- Eithne Farry * Mail on Sunday * A story that is equal parts hilarious and devastating * Vogue * Francesa Segal is precise and funny, and The Awkward Age is brimming with keen observations of the highest order--the clever, the sore, and the sublime. * Emma Straub * Segal... is a sharp observer of the tribulations of teenage love and modern relationships. Particularly strong on how blind parents are towards their ghastly offspring's flaws, this book is a lively, quick-witted performance * The Sunday Times * In Francesca Segal's magnificent new novel The Awkward Age, romantic and parental love go head to head, stress-testing loyalties and bonds with heartbreaking consequences... Genius... An impressively nuanced and convincing portrait of maternal love... a painful delight to read, invoking a perfectly balanced oscillation between compassion and frustration -- Lucy Scholes * Independent * Themes of non-nuclear family life, the everyday fractures and renovations inherent to relationships of any kind, amid moments of pitch-perfect comic tension... Segal navigates these re-drawn battle lines with skill and sensitivity... There is no precise time, we are reminded, at which life becomes less tangled, at which personalities are formed as in aspic: we can see that all ages are awkward, but some are more awkward than others -- Zoe Apostolides * Financial Times *