I was captivated from the first page. I cannot remember when I enjoyed a first novel more
- Nina Bawden, Daily Telegraph
If all works of fiction were as thoughtful, as subtle, as well constructed, and as funny as <i>Metroland</i> there would be no more talk of the death of the novel
New Statesman
A rare and unusual first novel
- William Boyd, London Magazine
A very funny, touching first novel. It has a hard comic edge to it that is logical and at the same time extremely diverting
Spectator
One would have to look very hard to find a wryer, more lovingly detailed account of intellectual and sexual innocence abroad
- Jay Parini, New York Times
An alert, witty, unpredictable novel which brings a sharp fresh eye to bear on English character and English compromises
Observer
<i>Metroland </i>is a delicious book, sharp and witty and observant
The Listener
One of the best accounts of clever English schoolboyhood I've read
Times Educational Supplement
Flighty, playful… Barnes succeeds in vividly recreating teenage precociousness, particularly what it feels like to be a young male encountering love and sex
Los Angeles Times
A dazzling entertainer
New Yorker
From the winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction comes a magnificent portrait of youth and growing up.
Christopher and Toni found in each other the perfect companion for that universal adolescent pastime: smirking at the world as you find it. In between training as flaneurs and the grind of school they cast a cynical eye over their various dislikes: parents with their lives of spotless emptiness, Third Division (North) football teams, God, commuters and girls, and the inhabitants of Metroland, the strip of suburban dormitory Christopher calls home.
Longing for real life to begin, we follow Christopher to Paris in time for les evenements of 1968, only to miss it all in a haze of sex, French theatre and first love, leading him, to Toni's disappointment, back to Metroland.
From the winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction comes a magnificent portrait of youth and growing up.
Christopher and Toni found in each other the perfect companion for that universal adolescent pastime: smirking at the world as you find it.