This is Life

In Paris, art student Aurelie Renard throws a stone and sets in motion a chain of events that will turn her life upside down. Suddenly finding herself in sole charge of a stranger’s baby, and with no idea how babies work, it’s only thanks to the help of her adoring professor and her gun-toting heartbreaker of a best friend that Aurelie Renard is able to navigate her way through the most extraordinary and calamitous seven days of her life. Meanwhile, in a Pigalle cinema, a naked man is doing his best to show the people of Paris, Aurelie among them, what it means to be alive…

Reviews of This is Life

* The funniest, most romantic book Dan Rhodes has ever written. It's full of zest and joy and art and Paris. Only to be read if you enjoy happiness. — Jenny Colgan * Rhodes is that real, rare thing – a natural storyteller Sunday Times * My favourite writer who isn't dead. Stewart Lee * Dan Rhodes is a true original, with a fresh, funny, quirky style that seems to owe nothing to other writers and everything to his own powers of invention — Hilary Mantel * Wonderfully unpredictable. Draws you in from the first page — Alan Carr * A literary treasure — Louis de Bernieres * Bound to be every bit as weird and inexplicitly beautiful as all Rhode's other novels. Independent on Sunday * This is the mad-yet-logical world of Dan Rhodes, possibly Britain's most idiosyncratic writer. delightfully unique — Kate Saunders The Times * The wit is spot-on, the writing immaculate, the atmosphere so French you can smell the Gauloises…I loved it — Wendy Holden Daily Mail * This is Life is a true melange of talk, action, lust and performance art … the novel has many charms — Daneet Steffens The Independent on Sunday * His novel is not a mockery of the chick-lit genre, even if it is aware of the narrative conventions of the genre and takes gentle pot-shots every now and then. It simply takes a popular formula and gives it a very welcome edge. Superb — Lesley McDowell The Scotsman * A reminder of how strange ordinary life is and it challenges us to "adjust to the darkness" — Michael Holroyd The Guardian * Rhodes has enormous fun here, sending up the intellectual onanism of the visual arts world in conspicuously clean, plain prose while also embracing the romantic mythology of his Parisian setting — Claire Allfree Metro * Whether it's a novel about life imitating art or the other way around, Rhodes, like Le Machine, has managed to bottle something of both — Emma Hagestadt Independent * It is irresistible: quality froth infused with restrained comic irony, some very nice touches of dark humour and one or two genuinely arresting moments — Toby Clements Daily Telegraph * Dan Rhodes's heavily quirky, warmly improbable feel-good novel is romantic and satirical by turns, with a serious, sentimental core — Phil Baker Sunday Times * This is Life is a charming and warm-hearted book, full of dark paradoxes and witty ideas and sexual jokes and people you would like to spend time with Observer * Rhodes is sharp, witty and endlessly clever, and, as the plot deftly side-steps from the ridiculous to the sublime and back, there's little that isn't charming along the way Irish Times * This is Life is sharp, satirical, heart-warming, a times silly, knowing and hugely enjoyable — Doug Johnstone Big Issue * Rhodes is a masterful storyteller and this brims with the warmth of a writer in love with his characters. His comic timing is impeccable and his ability to create hilariously up-ended set pieces is unsurpassable. Dan Rhodes may just be the funniest author writing today Booktrust * It's certainly Rhodes's most accessible novel yet, it is wholly charming and manages to make some serious points about art, and what it's for, as well Sunday Herald * Rhodes carries off the more improbable moments with wit and joie de vivre — Emma Hagestadt Independent