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A delight of a book with delightful and disarmingly quirky yet really believable characters. McKenna's narrative voice and Isabel Adomakoh Young's Audible narration make for a compelling experience. Every character is interesting, lovely and awful in equal measure, shared with insight, wit and confidence, but it's not just about the characters. It's about London, it's about the stories we experience but rarely share with others, it's the lies we tell ourselves, it's about the messiness of love. I miss the characters already and can't recommend this highly enough.

A languid look at love, longing and loneliness in teenage James' Middle English world in late adolescence. Using adult James as Hewitt's narrator is a masterstroke, fleshing out his younger self's inner world - his desperation for love (of sorts), to be touched, to connect, whilst not understanding anyone around him, let alone Luke, the boy he remains obsessed with. Coming of age stories often offer simplistic answers to younger people's (especially queer people) competing needs for love and connection, but Hewitt doesn't resort to cliché in the closing act. It's a lovely, compelling story, despite sometimes drifting into excess lyricism, and I saw a lot of myself in James, well into gay adulthood.

It’s impressively enough written and the look at queer Americana is both valuable and interesting. The look at how awkward questions of identity beyond LGBTQ damage and break relationships is pretty compelling although I wouldn’t ever say Theron or Jake is ever painted as likeable. The pace of the book also regularly nosedives although that languid feel is a stylistic choice.

I'm really looking forward to this, even more because Sebastian Croft is narrating the audiobook.

It's a fast read, and it's fun. The artwork is insanely detailed and I'm completely hooked, although I'm not fully engaged with the characters yet. Did Byrne rip this off with The Pitt?

Heading to Japan in a month, it's finally time to get into Manga and see what all the fuss is about.

It's engaging enough so far - Theron/David is certainly interesting and likeable at this stage, although the density of some of the early exchanges with Jake feels like it stifles the intensity of what's developing. I'm enjoying it but I'm not hooked yet.

With his 17 year old protagonist Garner shows there’s a lot more to be said about adolescence, adulthood and identity than most coming of age stories suggest. The voice he gives Isaac is both tender and tough, his feelings entirely understandable in their complexity, and the confusion of his entry into the gay world resonates with me still. We indeed are always ‘coming of age’ in the same way we’re always coming out. It’s a bravura piece of writing that deserves a huge audience.

The aftermath of Harrison’s attempt to murder Isaac is in many ways even more interesting than the runup. The processes of both men’s feelings are laid out in their complexity and simplicity - a literary balancing act that continues to imbue the novel as a whole with class, integrity and vitality. Garner depicts queer characters and situations that in lesser hands would descend into cliché, but in Isaac he offers something that feels new, fresh and thoughtful. Understanding sexuality and feelings, sex and intimacy, friendship and identity is hard for anyone, but Garner’s depiction of Isaac’s particularly queer experience of them resonates powerfully. The protagonist is frequently unlikable but I’ll miss him.