This book had a real impact on me. It invited into the worlds, and indeed the heads, of people I may never meet and allowed me to squat in their lives for the duration of the book. For other readers, I'm sure there will be recognition and even identication with the daily reality of this group of London millennials. This is real state of the nation stuff and a searing yet humane account of city-life in all is beauty and ugliness, hope and despair.
Everyone on the platform is on their way to nights out. Maggie feels glum. It's as if the people of London have converged on the city's parks, beer gardens, and street corners to revel in the great collective joys of being alive, everyone but you, they seem to say, you loner, squanderer, you who stares longingly at the laughing groups of youths in London Fields.
This, she thinks, is the crux of it. The crux of it is that she wants to go to a party.
