The Awkward Age

It’s beautifully written – Victoria Hislop * Good Housekeeping *A very smart, soulful, compelling, elegantly written domestic novel – Nick Hornby * Observer *Francesca Segal is incisive on modern lives, penetrating and thoughtful - and yet always joyfully entertaining and stylishly readable. * Naomi Alderman *Segal’s wit and intelligence are entirely her own and the moral dilemmas of her characters could not be more modern… Segal has a superb eye for the lies that the middle-aged lovers tell themselves, and they are jolted back to reality when it all goes spectacularly wrong. It is nearly a tragedy, but not quite; she’s just too funny – Kate Saunders * The Times *Elegant… an entertaining look at the messy business of trying to be in a family in emotionally trying circumstances… Irresistible – Eithne Farry * Mail on Sunday *A story that is equal parts hilarious and devastating * Vogue *Francesa Segal is precise and funny, and The Awkward Age is brimming with keen observations of the highest order–the clever, the sore, and the sublime. * Emma Straub *Segal… is a sharp observer of the tribulations of teenage love and modern relationships. Particularly strong on how blind parents are towards their ghastly offspring’s flaws, this book is a lively, quick-witted performance * The Sunday Times *In Francesca Segal’s magnificent new novel The Awkward Age, romantic and parental love go head to head, stress-testing loyalties and bonds with heartbreaking consequences… Genius… An impressively nuanced and convincing portrait of maternal love… a painful delight to read, invoking a perfectly balanced oscillation between compassion and frustration – Lucy Scholes * Independent *Themes of non-nuclear family life, the everyday fractures and renovations inherent to relationships of any kind, amid moments of pitch-perfect comic tension… Segal navigates these re-drawn battle lines with skill and sensitivity… There is no precise time, we are reminded, at which life becomes less tangled, at which personalities are formed as in aspic: we can see that all ages are awkward, but some are more awkward than others – Zoë Apostolides * Financial Times *

Francesca Segal is an award-winning writer and journalist. Her first novel, The Innocents, won the 2012 Costa First Novel Award, the 2012 National Jewish Book Award for Fiction, the 2013 Sami Rohr Prize, and a Betty Trask Award. It was also longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. She lives in London with her family.

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