Oh this was right up my street. I really loved it. Supernatural, fairy tales and enigmatic strangers. It's a YA book - it would make a great TV series I think.

I enjoyed the twists and turns - some fairly obvious but I didn't see how it was going to end. I am definitely going to pick up the rest of these, I think they are a series. It was a bit Neil Gaiman, I thought, though less creepy.

This was my absolute favourite book as a child. Reading it with the children. They've changed Fanny to Frannie which seems a bit weird and pointless given the much more problematic things in Enid Blyton novels but there we go.

Kids enjoyed it, and i have a request to move on to the next one immediately.

This was so moreish. I wasn't sure at first, the switching perspectives (there are 3, two told in the 3rd and one in 2nd perspective) was quite jarring. But the story became so intriguing, I really enjoyed reading all the characters.

It's a coming of age tale; the intensity of teenage feelings - combined with fascinating supernatural element. I found Sweet James super creepy and the book does really well with that, and I fell a bit in love with Bobby Dear (who doesn't want a talking cat?!)

My gripe is that it left too much unexplained. I'm sure it's deliberate; no one wants the book spoon fed to them, but I wanted to understand more about the world beyond the walls and where Bobby and James were from. Maybe I'm supposed to be more open to interpreting it. There are allusions to God(s) and the celestial and the like. I'm a bit literal, I like a bit more of a giveaway.

But I really really enjoyed this and zipped through it.

I read this in a couple of sittings. It went down really easily.

Told in the first person, Gary is a great narrator, I enjoyed being in his head. The plot isn't particularly novel but that's not the supposed to be the strength of it - Mortimer's easily identifiable sense of humour is evident through Gary and he's oddly funny. There's a subtle layer of themes of loneliness through the novel. The scenes where Gary gets a bit of the devil in him are great, silly and funny and totally Bob Mortimer.

One of the 'reviews' on the back dust cover is from Ron Sabre. It says 'I hope all the characters are doing well now the book has finished ' that sums it up, I do like to think of them all making a little life for themselves.

This is a really intelligent and thoughtful piece of writing which takes much of the vitriol and controversy out of the discussion of trans rights and approaches it methodically and rationally. Equally, it recenters the debate exactly where it should be - minimising the noise created by the media and SM and drawing our attention to where it should be; how discrimination against trans people *actually* affects their everyday lives. Looking at human rights, healthcare, ability to work and trying to address the thorny issue of trans rights within feminism, this is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the issues without the chaotic noise currently in the public forum. It avoids becoming embroiled in the successful distractions of women's sports/spaces/toilet access debacles and actually spends the time demonstrating the real life issues faced by trans people just trying to go about their day. Nothing in this was a surprise to me, but it helped to refocus my attention in the right way.

I am struggling to make up my mind about this.

It's probably not really my thing. It's set in an era that I wouldn't normally be that interested in, it's quite slow and I found myself avoiding picking it up.

But. It's beautifully written, and it's very clever. It's maudlin in tone which is perhaps why I struggled with it. I enjoyed the playfulness of themes of illusion and perspective. The shifts and mirages he creates with language are lovely, the slippages in meaning of the same words in different ways.

It probably deserves more than a 3, I'll say 3.5 but only because I'm probably too dim to understand what he's doing. I never did get on with the novels that tinker with language.

Don't get me wrong, this book was really good. I was so invested in Kiara and Trevor. But oh my god it was unrelenting misery from start to finish. I'm not sure if the end was hopeful or not. I thought it was beautifully written but the wall to wall misery was just not the one for me. I'm going 3.5 because it is very clearly a brilliant book but I wouldn't recommend it.

I think the problem I had with this book was that it was completely alienating. Like, I get that that's half the point but I felt totally devoid of feeling about any of the characters.

Sure, the premise is interesting, and it's kind of well thought out, though it did feel really laboured at times. I liked the world building at the start and the debate section at the end was great - but the book would be a complete failure without it and I could have just read some philosophy, the bible and some Shakespeare.

It's excruciatingly racist and sexist and ableist surprise surprise, with the alphas all appearing to be white and the epsilon characters often described as dark and/or simian and/or stunted.

In an exploration of what it is to be human, to be free, to feel and be happy, it's one to read but it has a lot of problems.

This wasn't my favourite but it was fun to read the first Poirot story. I am going to carry on reading these. I didn't read this trying to figure out who did it - I don't think you really can with Christie, she loves a red herring!