Yay, a Brit read the book!

Stephanie Merritt at the Observer provides a necessary corrective to all the knee-jerking over there. '[T]o condemn it as merely wilful taboo-breaking,' she says, 'is to miss the humanity in what is one of the strangest and most moving works of children's literature I have read in years [...] Look beyond the shocking scenes and this is a novel that explores the most profound human emotions with a clear gaze; it made me weep like a child at the end.'

Weeping is a much better reaction than shrieking.