How to Be Somebody Else

A stunning novel. Remarkable and real. Every single line is supercharged with a kind of cerebral eroticism, a zinging inventive intelligence. The sentences buzz and hum

Samantha Harvey, author of Orbital

Unsettling and original

Tessa Hadley, author of After the Funeral

So sharp and well observed. I loved the wry, understated humour, and how perceptive the book is about female desire. In its exploration of a woman trying to make sense of herself it is moving without being sentimental, and clever without seeming to try too hard

Rebecca Wait, author of I'm Sorry You Feel That Way

Compulsive. It makes its moves with such assurance that it’s hard to believe this is Pountney’s first novel. A wild mess of sex and feeling is here given beautiful form

Adam Thirlwell, author of The Future Future

Brutal and brilliant, in luscious prose, How to Be Somebody Else shows us what happens when life starts to unfurl

Annie Lord, author of Notes on Heartbreak

Sharp and entertaining

Daily Mail

How to Be Somebody Else has literary oomph... What sets this debut apart is the way it sustains its sparky style to the last page without stinting on the serious stuff

Sunday Times

Impressive… A book founded on the anxiety that undermines our drive towards attachment and stability, and it thrives on a constant sense of slippage and precarity, a jumpy exploration of what it might feel like to cede control, and what might take its place

Observer

A humane and compelling performance

Literary Review

Stylish, sharp, genuinely funny. The most enjoyable New York novel I've read since The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. I loved it

Claire Powell, author of At The Table

A novel of graceful sentences and perfectly-lit vignettes, often obliquely funny; the minutiae and questionable decisions of a newly reimagined life, observed at just the right distance for us to see the whole and the details at once

Holly Gramazio, author of The Husbands

Pountney has an admirable clarity of voice and her book is consistently impressive… Intelligent, confident and original

Times Literary Supplement

Original, clever and compulsive. And the writing is glorious

Irish Examiner