Press

What the critics say

I knew from the first page that this was going to be a very funny book, but I didn't realise it would have so much heart and be so beautiful
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Savage, hilarious, uncannily moving, and true. It's the first novel I've read that burns with all the madness, sadness and refracted terror of right now, and everyone should read it. Right now
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This is a book which does more than just take you on a journey through the last twenty years. It also has a lot to say about family eccentricities, about childhood and adulthood and the difficulties faced in trying to be either, given the times we live alongside
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Raucously funny and achingly sad. Written with thrilling verve and wince-making acuity, The Adult marks Joe Stretch out as a unique and vital voice
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The book is magnificent, understated, full of gentle mind grenades
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Funny and rich and dirty and taut and original. I wanted it to be my biography, but there was way more warmth and invention in it than you could fit in a lifetime
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A ribald, well-observed, coming-of-age comedy… Beautifully wrought mockery of everything from smoothie bars to Gary Barlow’s early solo career
- Metro

Funny, sad, bewildering and painfully honest, it’s a must-read for all fans of Joe Dunthorne’s Submarine
- Emerald Street

Warm, funny and nostalgic enough to have you digging out your Global Hypercolor T-shirt and fluoro toweling socks
- Short List

Bursting with wit… addictive
- Stylist

Funny and true
- List

One to watch… Very funny, beautifully wrought… The novel gathers significant emotional weight over the passage of 20 years, and what starts out with a light tone acquires real depth of feeling
- Telegraph