You People

Critics Review

• Enthralling as a thriller, yet also a beautiful human drama, and a serious enquiry into the possibility of goodness

  Tessa Hadley

• Beautiful and brilliant. The exquisite writing is vivid, poetic and perceptive; the characters alive and compelling. Everything I want from a novel. I loved it.

  Stephen Merchant

• Lively, poetically written and above all compassionate

  Sunday Times

• Timely and hopeful

  Cosmopolitan

• This sinuous morality tale unfurls from the alternating perspectives… Slinking along like a thriller, it encompasses people smuggling, the labyrinthine inhumanity of Britain’s immigration system, alcoholism and a class prejudice that cuts both ways. Kindness and its motives are a constant preoccupation

  Economist

• Pulses with energy

  Mail on Sunday

• A startlingly original, continuously astute, and deeply compassionate novel. You People alerts us, in these dark times, to the possibility of human nobility

  Pankaj Mishra

• Lalwani’s vivid, intensely empathic novel raises profound moral questions while maintaining the momentum and urgency of a thriller

  The Lady

• Lalwani is a writer who understands people, and it shines through in her descriptions. This is a moving, authentic, humane novel which raises fundamental questions about what it means to be kind in an unkind world, and it will stay with me for a long time

  Guardian

• Lalwani’s novel tackles racism and xenophobia, but You People is essentially a compassionate human drama, full of perceptive insights

  Independent, Books of the Month

• Folds serious social issues into an entertaining plot

  Daily Mail

• Brilliant . . . A thriller reminiscent of Dirty Pretty Things. Really recommend it.

  Nikesh Shukla

• Intelligent and heart-piercing – an exceptional novel about the Britain we live in, even if we choose not to see it

• Lalwani’s prose has a balletic lightness

  Economist

• A female lead who isn’t defined by a romantic story arc? Yes please. Lalwani’s serious, ravishing way of writing about the secret life of Britain is just what we need

  Times

• You People is a short, complex novel that shines a light behind the smiles at your local restaurant, and asks tough questions about the nature of goodness in an unfair society

  Sunday Telegraph BOOK OF THE WEEK

• A sensitive and thought-provoking examination of an issue that is never far from the news and, as the plot accelerates, it segues into a tense and nerve-wracking thriller

  Western Mail

• Lalwani’s novels are full of moments when the stories people tell about themselves and the world prove to be unreliable or open to manipulation…. observations are magical, fresh and unsettling

  London Review of Books

• If you want a book to read this summer that taps into contemporary concerns, this excellent new one from Nikita Lalwani is the one to read

  Spectator

• Lalwani explores kindness, altruism and the precariousness of interconnected lives in an economical tale that has the pace and suspense of a thriller

  Daily Mail

• Lalwani eloquently explores the prejudices, financial pressures and loneliness faced by ‘outsiders’ trying to survive in a hostile environment

  The Tablet