Oligarchy

Entertaining, irreverent and wrong-hilarious . . . Hugely enjoyable. It's about as menacing as a cool girl's black glitter nail polish - and just as much fun -- BIDISHA * * Observer * * Thomas's humour has a sharp, rhythmic perfection. Her prose is fast-thinking, entertaining and punchy, her dialogue fully authentic . . . Intriguing, fluid and frequently funny * * New York Times Book Review * * Wickedly funny . . . Thomas has great fun with the familiar components of the boarding school yarn, even as she subverts them. Her writing is spikily humorous and controlled . . . This jet-black novel begs to be dramatised * * The Times * * Oligarchy is a delicious slap in the face; stunningly intelligent, alarmingly modern, hilariously funny, deeply pertinent, true, fantastical and several hankies'-worth of poignant -- LOUISA YOUNG Riotously funny . . . There are few more vivaciously original novelists around today, and surely none of them is having as much fun while making serious points . . . Quite brilliant . . . There have been many other notable novels about schools . . . but none so entertaining since Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie * * Spectator * * Wrapping a murder mystery in a wicked comedy of manners, this instantly engaging novel untangles the perverse contradictions of how society contrives to fear, ignore and fetishise teenage girls. Viciously funny, with a killer turn of phrase * * Metro * * An intricate black jewel of a novel. Weeks later I'm still thinking about it -- KIRSTY LOGAN Great fun, a knowing satire of British private schoolgirls, their snobberies and obsessions, and especially their body-image anxieties . . . Thomas clearly knows how to craft a very funny sentence, and has profound insight into the issues she is writing about * * Guardian * * This is the boarding school novel in the age of #thinspo, Instagram, blockchain and the dark web, all written in Thomas's lush and funny style * * Stylist * * Thomas's prose is fast-thinking, entertaining and punchy * * New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice * *

Scarlett Thomas was born in London in 1972. Her novels include Bright Young Things, PopCo, Our Tragic Universe and The Seed Collectors. She is Professor of Creative Writing & Contemporary Fiction at the University of Kent.