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“The joys of this
shrewdly playful narrative lie not only in the high-low darts and dives of
Pessl’s tricky plotting, but in her prose, which floats and runs as if by
instinct, unpremeditated and unerring…This skylarking book will leave readers
salivating for more.”
— New York Times Book Review
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“Hip, ambitious, and
imaginative…It’s always refreshing to find a writer who takes such joy in the
magical tricks words can perform.”
— Los Angeles Times
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“Blue’s
cross-referencing mania can be surprisingly enjoyable, because Pessl is a
vivacious writer who’s figured out how to be brainy without being pedantic.”
— Washington Post
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“Witty and exuberant…Pessl’s
pyrotechnics place her alongside young, eclectic talents like Dave Eggers,
Jonathan Safran Foer, and Zadie Smith.”
— Vogue
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“A frisky,
smarty-pants debut…An escapist extravaganza packed with literary and pop
culture allusions, mischievous characterizations, erotic intrigue, murders, and
unstoppable narrative energy.”
— Entertainment Weekly
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“Extravagant, witty,
and dark, Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a sprawling campus
novel, an intricate murder mystery, a coming-of-age tale, and a sly satire of
intellectualism and academia. Her prose is…vivid, erupting in a freefall of
wordplay, wisecracks, encyclopedia tidbits, and a barrage of cultural
references…Her enthusiasm for language is a delight.”
— Miami Herald
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“There is a voice
here to like, part Huck Finn, part Holden Caulfield, part Fran Leibowitz, and
part Nora Ephron.”
— Harper’s
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“A real novel, one of
substance and breadth, with an arresting story and that rarest of delights, a
great ending.”
— Salon
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“Gripping and dark,
funny and poignant.”
— USA Today
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“Beneath the foam of
this exuberant debut is a dark, strong drink.”
— Jonathan Franzen, National Book Award-winning author of The Corrections and Freedom
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“Special Topics in
Calamity Physics made me stay up all night reading; in the morning it
seemed like one of those parties where everyone is too cool for you but you
desperately want to know them anyway. It reminded me of my lost, bad-girl days.
I loved this book.”
— Audrey Niffenegger, New York Times bestselling author of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry