Press

What the critics say

No contemporary novelist is more enthralled by what goes on inside the human skull than Ian McEwan... Doubling back and forth across genre boundaries, Sweet Tooth takes risks...this acute, witty novel is a winningly cunning addition to McEwan’s fictional surveys of intelligence.
- Sunday Times

Playful, comic... This is a great big Russian doll of a novel, and in its construction – deft, tight, exhilaratingly immaculate – is a huge part of its pleasure.
- Observer

A thoroughly clever novel...a sublime novel about novels, about writing them and reading them and the spying that goes on in doing both...very impressive...rich and enjoyable.
- Financial Times

Gave us another of his delightful posh-totty narrators, young Serena Frome, who is recruited into the intelligence services in the 1970s.
- The Times

What you see is not what you get, and the twist at the end reminds us of how many of this author’s works confound readers imaginations... A well-crafted pleasure to read, its smooth prose and slippery intelligence sliding down like cream.
- Independent

Simultaneously a tongue-in-cheek riff on his own early stories, a typically assured spy novel with a sting in the tail, and a meditation on the relationship between reader and writer.
- Guardian

The true subject of this smart and tricky novel, set inside a cold war espionage operation, is the border between make-believe and reality.
- New York Times

A wisecracking thriller hightailing between love and betrayal, with serious counter-espionage credentials thrown in... This is ultimately a book about writing, wordplay and knowingness.
- Sunday Telegraph

For most of its length, this account of a young woman's adventures in the British secret service of the 1970s reads like Le Carre-lite, but with McEwan nothing is ever quite as it seems and towards the end the reader is asked to re-examine what's gone before. Real-life friends and acquaintances of the author have walk-on parts, which you may find fascinating.
- Irish Independent

Given McEwan’s ability to make riveting fiction out of English politics (not easy), it would be hard to imagine anyone better equipped to write such a story... Delicious... Gripping.
- Guardian

Parallels and contrasts between the mind-sets and mind games of espionage agents and writers of fiction are deftly teased out... acute, witty, cunningly crafted and full of fascinating autobiographical insights.
- Sunday Times

Gloriously readable and, at times, wickedly funny.
- Irish Times

Had McEwan, through Serena’s benefit of hindsight in narrating her life, planted the clues? Let every reader have the pleasure of finding out.
- Sunday Express

A curious piece of autobiographical fiction.
- Evening Standard

McEwan’s prose is controlled, his observation forensic as ever... McEwan carries us with irresistible momentum to a surprise ending.
- Intelligent Life

Highly entertaining.
- Guardian

The great thing about McEwan is that, despite his success, he continues to work hard, producing ever more accessible and entertaining stories.
- Daily Mirror

An artful game of distortion... Clever handling.
- Mail on Sunday

Carefully researched.
- Daily Telegraph

I loved it. It reminded me of his most successful novel, Atonement.
- Harpers Bazaar Online

Adroitly done...highly diverting.
- Literary Review

McEwan’s mastery dazzles us in this superbly deft and witty story of betrayal and intrigue, love, and the invented self.
- GQ

Fans of Ian McEwan should rejoice with this arrival of this novel, because Sweet Tooth is McEwan's finest work since 2001's Atonement.
- Sunday Business Post

His assumption of a female persona is pitch-perfect.
- Daily Mail

Must read... Intrigue, love and mutual betrayal by a master of the art.
- The Lady

Gripping.
- Evening Standard ES Magazine

Full of ideas.
- Metro

Cleverly metafictional.
- Prospect

One of the most hotly anticipated novels of the year...it’s brilliant.

- Sunday Business Post

McEwan, as always, presents an engaging narrator... The plot is fantastic... McEwan plays with the readers expectations, and surpasses them all with a fabulous ending that makes me itch to re-read this superb novel all over again. Sweet Tooth marks another triumph for a brilliant British author.
- Bookgeeks.co.uk

A pleasing, tricksy beast with a subsumed sense of metatextuality likely to be pleasing to his fans.
- Bookmunch

This most cunning of authors entertains and manipulates his readers. Sweet Tooth is a masterclass in the art of fiction.
- Book Oxygen

Dazzling.
- Essentials

A funny, sad and intriguing spy novel/love story.
- Irish Times

A cold-war novel which I thoroughly enjoyed.
- Irish Times

An acute psychological study and a wise contemplation of the stories we tell and read and the question of who actually “owns” them. McEwan at his best.
- Washington Post