A girl is a half-formed thing

[hackmum]

I see this has won the Bailey's prize. Anyone read it? I downloaded a sample on my Kindle, read it and gave up in favour of something lighter. Perhaps I ought to give it another go.

I've tried it and couldn't get beyond the point of walking to the till at Waterstone to buy it. I heard her reading it on Tuesday night at the Bailey's Readings/Q&A at the Southbank Centre and I still lost the will to live even with her understanding the flow of it all.

I was really disappointed it won. I wanted Burial Rites to get it but it seems it was style over a decent read, which often seems the way with the prizes. Still faintly surprised that Luminaries won the Booker.

I've read it but not my writing style at all. Probably a good story if wrote in a different style

Try using the tool on www.literature-map.com . Just add your fav author to the search box and you will find authors who write in a similar genre to your favourites! Very entertaining pastime I have no life!

I loved the undertaking from the baileys prize

Burual rites - meh

I've just downloaded this to my kindle and I'm really struggling with it.
The writing style makes my head hurt. Wish I'd bought something else.

John Sutherland wrote a piece about it in the Guardian today, which gives the plot away, so don't read it. I do want to read it - the critics all said it's brilliant - but the combination of difficult prose style with upsetting subject matter doesn't make it very enticing.

I wonder if perhaps in case of this book there is going to be big difference if reading it as book as opposed to Kindle/electronic version?
( I am charging my Kindle to download a sample)

I hate the fact that they've changed the name of the competition. If you have a competition choose a name and stick to it, changing it to suit the sponsor is so tacky and unprofessional.
I don't like stylised stories. I like to be able to immerse myself in them without struggling with the language, trying to work out what they mean by something, wondering why the author can't use punctuation properly, getting annoyed that there aren't any chapters dividing it into segments for those of us who have a life outside reading etc.
This sounds like a critics book rather than a readers book.
Having said that Time's Arrow by Martin Amis was stylised but I found that very readable.

Just finished it. I enjoy almost all literary fiction, but cannot recommend this book. Prose very difficult to wade through, and subject matter very dark. I kept hoping for a happy ending, and unfortunately none was forthcoming.. I guess if you can cope with graphic scenes of abusive sexual nature you might be in agreement with the judges of the Baileys prize, but I tend to avoid such books as reading for me should be an enjoyable escapism. ( I was given the book for my birthday, and only later read the reviews, but still I was not prepared for the relentless horribleness).