Little Monsters: Guardian review

Another review of Little Monsters, this time from The Guardian. It's the sort of review that's best described as mixed. Mixed, as in: The parts of the book dealing with Carol's adolescence are very good indeed, but the more contemporary passages appear spurious and incidental. 'Very good indeed' is encouraging, and the only bit that's worth extracting, but I could have lived without 'spurious'. Glancing at the other first novels reviewed in the same column, though, things could have been worse. Catherine Taylor, the reviewer, could have used the phrase 'repetitive self-indulgence', as she does when she talks about Voice Over, by Céline Curiol. It looks as though she was in slightly acerbic mood when she sat down with her pile of débutantes (gratuitous Dylan quote: Your débutante just knows what you need/But I know what you want.). To make up for it, Amazon UK now has five extremely positive readers' reviews. If you've read the book and would like to add a few kind - or even critical - words, I'd be delighted.