When to Walk

City living's not all it's cracked up to be. Not when you're stuck at home writing articles on foreign travel and the furthest trip you've made in months is to the shop down the street. Then your no-good husband interrupts your research (into Japanese illuminated ice-sculptures, if you must know) to declare your marriage dead.

"It's a pain, frankly, having to work out what's going on in your head," he spits, before slipping out the door. For a girl called Ramble, deaf in one ear and borderline antisocial, something's got to give. Wildly funny, searching and contemporary, this adorable debut is rich in magnificent characters and an ill-advised hope that it's a sane world after all.