This is a totally convincing portrait of being a wayward teenager now, that only a teenager could have written.
Funny, witty and addictive, Lolito is a quirky and disturbing ball of energy that will consume readers until they have turned the last page. Brooks has created the most authentic teenage voice of the twenty-first century.
Brooks acutely captures what it means to be a 21st-century youth. The seamless inclusion of Facebook statuses and online chats throughout the text captures the hybrid nature of a life lived partially online.
The Financial Times - Dima Alzayat
"Etgar is painfully self-conscious and self-deprecating; he inhabits that familiar teen mindset where every little thing is the most crucial event in your life, until it’s not anymore, and then it’s sad and funny at the same time. His staccato narration, interspersed with references to pop culture and the Internet, manages to get at genuine teen anxieties while still being hilarious.
New York Daily News - Allison Chopin
Lolito is a credible, often exquisite work sure to court at least a little controversy in its depiction of ageless (im)maturity… Lolito won't ever become a tiny corner forgotten.
The Huffington Post - Declan Tan
Lolito is the funniest, most horrible book I've read in years. I was blown away.
If this all sounds like an episode of the British TV show Skins , well, you wouldn’t be wrong…both rely on the affect of grittiness for their appeal while simultaneously featuring teenagers who are as fragile as a Morrissey song.
Electric Literature - Eric Howell
Brooks is a master of this art.
Written in Brooks’s distinctively funny and ennui-infused voice, Lolito is a wildly entertaining narrative about love gone wrong that explores guilt while fully embracing, and exposing in an almost voyeuristic fashion, the dramas, thought processes, deplorable online behaviors, and attitudes of a regular male teenager.
Verbicide Magazine - Gabino Iglesias
Lolito manages to be hilarious, thought-provoking, disturbing and ridiculous all at once and again proves that young Brooks is one of the UK’s most promising young writers right now—a possible Irvine Welsh of his generation.
I love Ben Brooks. And Lolito is really something else. A twisted age-gap love story that is deadpan and grubby and strangely poetic and funny and wrong and also very right.
"Lolito is reminiscent of Superbad and Youth in Revolt... Etgar is one of the most compelling teenage voices in contemporary literature, with a seemingly endless capacity for imagination and wit."
Brooks is a master of this art.
Grow Up is absolutely knockout - Brooks has the timing of a genius stand-up comic. Top class
Funny, witty and addictive, Lolito is a quirky and disturbing ball of energy that will consume readers until they have turned the last page
Ben Brooks made me think that I'm glad I was fifteen in 1974 rather than now. I'm not actually that crazy about being fifty-four right now
The Truth About Lies - Jim Murdoch
Lolito is the funniest, most horrible book I've read in years. I was blown away
My God, Brooks is a frightening young talent. In Lolito , he creates a multi-coloured, grubby little world that I'd really hate to read about if I was a parent. Magnetising, funny and disturbing, his prose is infectious and highly addictive. I loved it
Brooks is a master of this art
The Times - Helen Rumbelow
Ben Brooks is a magical imp who pumps out dark nuggets of poetry and makes you snort with laughter
The most convincing portrayal of the adolescent mind since Vernon God Little
I love Ben Brooks. And Lolito is really something else. A twisted age-gap love story that is deadpan and grubby and strangely poetic and funny and wrong and also very right. It is like how The Graduate would have ended up if Dustin Hoffman had watched a lot of Loose Women and drank Strongbow and spent too much time on the internet
