‘This is valuable writing. It has immense vitality. You will encounter a female narrator whose direct and bright-eyed stare at the world, and herself, is without shame or faux modesty. At the same time, it is also a deep study of existence, at various ages and stages in life.’

– Deborah Levy

‘The ‘movements’ of The Paris Trilogy thrum with life, sparkle with insight. It was an exhilarating read. I’ve never encountered a more perfect depiction of how the world shrinks when you understand that you’re a ‘girl’, rather than a ‘person’.’

– Natasha Brown

‘Colombe Schneck writes with bracing intelligence and lucidity; she sees the world, and herself, with hard won clarity. A brave, beautiful, uncommonly tender book about love, death, sex and survival.’

– Katie Kitamura

‘Seventeen mines a trauma all too common for women and is published at a time when France has just enshrined abortion rights in their constitution. I found it a tale of frank retrospection, a mature woman looking back on her naive self with love and respect. It is immensely readable and still sadly relevant. Give it to every young woman you know.’

– Monique Roffey

‘Whether she’s writing about passion or perfecting the front crawl, there’s a frankness to Schneck’s meditations on womanhood – crisply translated here by Lauren Elkin and Natasha Lehrer – that is electrifying.’

– Hephzibah Anderson, Observer

'Schneck, translated by Lauren Elkin and Natasha Lehrer, also shares Ernaux’s plain style: simultaneously intimate and detached.'

– Anna Leszkiewicz, New Statesman