Shirley

A very astute, very stylish and very funny novel that establishes Ronnie Scott as a tremendously gifted social portraitist. I was enthralled.

Michelle de Kretser

Razor sharp and original writing that is funny and profound. Ronnie Scott is a major talent.

Annabel Crabb, Chat 10 Looks 3

Ronnie Scott’s Shirley is the book I’ve been waiting for: intimate, elegant and gritty. I absolutely adore Shirley.

Laura Jean McKay

Beautifully perceptive, Ronnie Scott’s Shirley unfolds with an elegant tension that is a tantalising delight.

Mirandi Riwoe

Shirley is playful and mournful and utterly captivating. Ronnie Scott's new novel radiates warmth and wisdom, and it confirms him as one of the most exciting writers working today.

Andrew Pippos

Shirley is funny, timely and constantly surprising. There’s no other writer quite like Ronnie Scott.

Victoria Hannan

A beautiful, arresting, and incredibly funny novel about growing into oneself and learning to love without ego.

Ellena Savage

The most interesting protagonist I’ve read in years. Scott is at once our very own Anita Brookner and a unique and distinctly modern author who writes our world, our fears, and our foibles for us.

Laura McPhee-Browne

Scott writes with the narrative intimacy of someone like Helen Garner, inviting you deeply into a life . . . Finishing the book comes with a sense of loss, that you won’t be able to just wander past the house or pop into our narrator’s apartment for a martini.

Bec Kavanagh, The Guardian

Shirley is assured, blackly funny and playful . . . Scott’s struggling, self-perceptive characters see themselves as vulnerable, yet smarter than their therapists. Could existential dread and irony come any funnier or more poignant?

Gay Lynch, The Conversation

Shirley is an engaging read with a dynamic female lead that makes a refreshing change from all the 'sad girl' novels that fill the new release shelves. It sparkles with great dialogue, believable characters, hunger-inducing descriptions of food and a vivid inner-city setting. Its interesting observations about love and trust, foodie culture, work-life balance, and the relationship between employers and their staff are simply an added bonus.

Kim Forrester, Reading Matters

A resonant, stylish, achingly recognisable novel about cats, mothers, work, care, food, loneliness, duplicity, independence and connection . . . he’s a masterful writer and Shirley is disarming and deeply affecting.

Veronica Sullivan, The Wheeler Centre

A note-perfect encapsulation of the mood of the moment . . . Shirley is often an eye-wateringly funny book and Scott’s comic timing is impeccable.

James Whitmore, The Library Is Open

A lively, contemporary portrait of a woman trying to live shallowly, hoping the world will eventually make sense.

Penelope Debelle, The Herald Sun

A novel that has been assembled by an expert hand.

Jasper Lindell, The Canberra Times

A thoughtful and quietly funny book about a troubling moment in our country's recent history. Moving, stylish and original, Ronnie Scott confronts the ethics of trying to decide on a future.

Therese Murray, The Senior

The most fascinating character is a cat called Meanie, who prowls through the pages and these characters’ lives, teasing out the complexities of their interactions – mother and daughter; employee and boss; ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriend; neighbours; friends; co-parents platonic, functional and romantic; human and pet. Scott’s observations call to mind the writer Rachel Cusk – both present seemingly ordinary or arbitrary conversations and moments to illustrate the truths and contradictions of human existence.

Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen, The Age

Terribly funny.

The Bookshelf, ABC

Scott has a precise ear for millennial banter and is particularly skilled at representing group social dynamics . . . He is acutely alert to undercurrents in contemporary life: the unreality of fame, the internet and ecological disaster, the subtle flexes of social standing.

Morgan Nunan, Australian Book Review

From intimate relationships to those at work, Scott explores what it means to invest in something genuine with all its accompanying vulnerability . . . Figuring out what has happened is only one way to read Shirley. Another is to embrace its anti-linear structure and savour Scott’s sparkling observations of contemporary urban life where flatmates, neighbours, lovers, parents, children, colleagues, cats, form a myriad of unconventional attachments.

Jessica Stewart, Newtown Review of Books

Despite Shirley’s realism and melodrama, the book eschews clear categorisation . . . the novel lacks the kind of certitude that characterises coming-of-age stories. It’s commendable how well Scott pulls this off. With his flawed and ambiguous protagonist, he manages to create a book that seeps into the reader, without providing easy answers about life’s pressing questions.

Maks Sipowicz, Meanjin

Slowly, Shirley also reveals itself as an anti-lifestyle text. For each sparkling marker of inner-city affluence, there is an equal and opposite undercurrent of dread edging the novel towards murkier territory . . . Even Scott’s geographical fidelity – faithfully documenting the names of each road the narrator traverses, each establishment she eyes off, like a hip travel guide to Melbourne – starts to sound exquisitely deranged.

Michael Sun, Sydney Review of Books

Stand fearless in the headlights of this rollercoaster-ride.

The Australian Women’s Weekly