Amphibian

Reviews / Votes

Tyler Wetherall is a fine writer and a great storyteller. Her debut novel is unlike anything else I have read. As a tale of childhood friendship, it brims with sex and violence and threat, and moves to a crescendo of strange and magical beauty. I recognised the strangeness of my own girlhood in it, and I am sure that other readers will do the same. Amphibian will stay with me for a long time. Tyler's art is to weave together a weight of observatory realist detail with the surreal - what Elizabeth Bishop called the 'surreality of the everyday'. The result here is terrific. * Rebecca Stott, Costa Award winning author of In the Days of Rain * 'Has a queasily compelling power . . . Wetherall's prose is thick with the terror and wonder of those turbulent years of physical change, and comes laced with mythic, mystic resonances-and a rather disconcerting dollop of magic realism.' * The Times * Surreal and magical . . . haunting . . . mesmerising. * Heat * 'In her debut novel, Tyler Wetherall mines the strange depths of female friendship for all of its traumatic treasure. Rarely have I felt so viscerally transported back in time as I did while reading this beautiful and haunting book. Gorgeously written and magically dressed, Amphibian resurrected for me the exquisite and ecstatic pains of girlhood.' * Hannah Lillith Assadi, author of Sonora and The Stars Are Not Yet Bells * 'I absolutely love this book. Haunting and visceral as a fairytale, Amphibian captures girlhood in all its feral, mythic glory and horror. Sissy and Tegan have a place in my heart forever.' * Lilly Dancyger, author of First Love and Negative Space, and editor of Burn It Down * 'It was something special to exist in the world of this book. Amphibian captures the contradictions of adolescence: the fear of and ache for change, the repulsive and joyful explorations of one's body, the need for protection and the urge to break free. In this exhilarating and visceral story, the final years of make-believe collide with the early years of real world consequences. In Wetherall's insistence on peering into all the dark corners of adolescence, she is able to do something quite profound: to rightfully dignify the experience of girlhood. I will be thinking about these characters and this story for a long time.' * Allison Behringer, award-winning narrative audio journalist and creator of Bodies podcast * This heart-wrenching coming-of-age novel had me constantly near-tears. I couldn't put it down and feel haunted by every moment, every sentence. * Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year * Gripping . . . A coolly observed portrait of the intense period when influence by peers easily trumps parental control * Financial Times *