The Men In My Life

"A very funny, moving and irreverent first novel from Garth Simmons, whose gifts with language and impossible-to-second-guess imagination are already writ large in his uniquely brilliant short story collection, Hole Punch. Ushered urgently into the world of Sarah, the book’s defiant teenage narrator, as she finds her feet in and away from her hometown of Crumlish, the reader is invited to suck on a slice of UK life both thumpingly familiar and distinctly odd: a place of borderline poverty, prostitution and self-aggrandising indie bands, but also of Stetson-wearing uncles, artistic experiments and talking cats. Among Simmons’ finest achievements, for this reader, is creating a narrator in Sarah who is equal parts cynical and sensitive – by telling ‘her’ story she’s able to retain control, and stay in the moment, and that means you’re just as likely to be slagged off as the characters she’s writing about, whether that’s Squiggle, Kevin, Mark, or any of the other men who try to shape her life. The book works as a paean to writing, and the writing as a testament to a young life lived in circumstances that vary from terrifying to comic to mundane and back again, told with empathy and wit by the author."

"Relatable, grunge, and honest.,"

"I don't know which 19-year old girl Garth Simmons stole this diary from, but she's great"

"Cynical and sensitive" 

"An uncanny fluidity to the prose making large chunks of it readable in one sitting, and an abhorrently loveable narrator who is using the written word in order to establish her persona and her truth, but ultimately telling a story that might be further from the truth, as she lampshades some of her more negative traits (such as stalking) and vilifies everyone who she thinks is lame or sleazy, sometimes it's justifiable, sometimes not, but always very funny even in the more gross-out moments."