What I Did: A Novel
“Much in the vein of Atonement, a well-intentioned innocent threatens to destroy the people he loves most . . . affecting.” (Publishers Weekly)“Like Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap, [WHAT I DID] documents one family’s attempt to copewith the aftermath of a public outburst and the failure of their own innocent attempts to put things right . . . an affecting, thought-provoking tale of parent-child relations.” (Booklist)“Warm, hilarious, eye-wateringly moving, with the cleverest use of point of view since Jane Austen . . . WHAT I DID is the novel that should have won the Booker prize.” (Daily Mail (London), "Christmas Pick" in the literary fiction category)“A child’s view of the actions and attitudes of adults has seldom been so compellingly or tenaciously illustrated as by Wakling in this perfect little book.” (Irish Times)“Gripping, hilarious, tender and a whole lot more, this is, without doubt, one of the books of the year.” (Daily Mail (London))“This is family life today at its most believable: warm and messy, bored and raging, and above all, self-conscious. WHAT I DID is every parent’s nightmare, but will make you burst out laughing too. I loved it.” (Emma Donoghue)“A powerful, poignant and funny novel, perched on the precarious line between protecting children and destroying families.” (Melbourne Age)“Amusing and unsettling . . . What I Did lets us into the mind of a child who is comically literal and utterly at sea in the world of adults.” (The Guardian)“Horribly plausible . . . [What I Did] brilliantly captures parent-child relations in the raw.” (The Independent)“Wakling creates believable conflict from the everyday facts of a child going just too far and a parent losing it . . . The novel is a strong depiction of a family in crisis.” (Sunday Age (Melbourne))“A powerful parable of 21st century society . . . a fine, challenging novel.” (Mail on Sunday)“I loved it! Staggeringly good. Terrifyingly good.” (Lisa Jewell, bestselling author of Ralph's Party)“Hugely impressive, gripping, funny and thought provoking.” (Emily Barr, bestselling author of Backpack)“Excellent . . . Dark but uplifting.” (Alex Preston, author of This Bleeding City)