Almost English

Reviews / Votes

I read and ADORED Almost English . . . And now I will read everything she's ever written. Charlotte Mendelson is a fiendishly gifted writer with such a way of looking at the world with huge generosity of spirit. It's what we need, especially now -- Marian Keyes Charlotte Mendelson is much admired by the cognoscenti and Almost English ought to be a bestseller. The account of a girl from a family of Hungarian aunts, dealing with love and old lechers at a ghastly boarding school in the 1980s, is sheer bliss - pure rueful comedy with endless resourcefulness . . . I adore her novels and wish there were many more of them -- Philip Hensher * Spectator * I adored Almost English -- Nigella Lawson Almost English is as good as we'd hoped . . . This funny, wise and heart-warming 1980s-set novel is perfect summer reading * Elle * Charlotte Mendelson's fourth novel is a deliciously funny tale of dysfunctional families. The Farkases recall characters from fairy tales or Roald Dahl . . . Reading Mendelson's easy, assured prose is like sinking into something soft and velvety * Telegraph (Top 10 Summer Holiday Reads) * Exotic, magnificent and just a little bit sinister . . . Mendelson's novels inhabit similar territory to those of Maggie O'Farrell, with the same capacity for extreme noticing, the same profound emotional intelligence shaping the characters and driving the narrative. But Mendelson's world is sharper, her sense of the world a little more cynical. Almost English has been longlisted for this year's Booker; it deserves to win for the quality of the writing alone . . . Beautifully written, warm, funny and knowing * Observer * Charlotte Mendelson's Man Booker Prize-longlisted novel takes that most English of literary genres - the boarding school comedy - and spices it with exotic ingredients drawn from Hungarian culture . . . It demonstrates a mastery of narrative craft . . . [A] deliciously moreish read * Financial Times * The Booker longlisted novel is a warm, wry and lively account of teenager Marina . . . the humanity in Mendelson's observations and her clever, comic writing make this a sparkling treat * Metro * Almost English is long-listed for this year's Man Booker Prize, and Charlotte Mendelson writes of the inner monologues and quiet frustrations that plague an all-female, half-Hungarian household trying to fit into society with a wry humour that carries echoes of Zadie Smith and Zoe Heller * Stylist * Almost English, her fourth novel, has just been longlisted for the Man Booker prize and it isn't difficult to see why: it is a little masterpiece of characterisation and milieu. There is plenty of plot and movement in Almost English, many changes of scene and points of view. * Guardian * Almost English is a finely executed comedy of manners, with a dark side . . . [Mendelson] masterminds events with wit and ingenuity, shifting moods from darkness to light in an instant, and delivering some glorious moments of uproarious comedy . . . Call it Jane Austen for the 21st century - a novel on a small scale, full of private preoccupations and a mischievously overblown supporting cast; a novel that nevertheless says something profound about the human condition * Scotsman *