‘Has a queasily compelling power’ The Times
‘Haunting and visceral as a fairytale’ Lilly Dancyger
‘Brims with sex and violence and threat, and moves to a crescendo of strange and magical beauty’ Rebecca Stott
‘Gorgeously written …resurrected for me the exquisite and ecstatic pains of girlhood’ Hannah Lillith Assadi, author of Sonora and The Stars Are Not Yet Bells
‘Exhilirating’ Allison Behringer
Sissy is used to being on the outside. The new girl in her West Country school, she recently arrived with her troubled mother, prone to letting Sissy fend for herself.
But from the day Sissy fights a boy in front of Tegan, she’s no longer alone. Bonded by violence, they grow so close they feel like one being: wrapped around each other in bed at sleepovers, sending photographs to men they meet online, and scaring each other with reports of the girls being snatched at night in their town.
Over the course of the school year, they find themselves on the threshold of girlhood, with threats gathering thick and fast around them. And as their make-believe worlds bleed into their daily lives, Sissy feels herself transforming into something strange and terrifying.
Amphibian is a tender, haunting coming-of-age debut about desire, precocity and the intensity of early friendships that have the power to upend our lives.
‘Haunting and visceral as a fairytale’ Lilly Dancyger
‘Brims with sex and violence and threat, and moves to a crescendo of strange and magical beauty’ Rebecca Stott
‘Gorgeously written …resurrected for me the exquisite and ecstatic pains of girlhood’ Hannah Lillith Assadi, author of Sonora and The Stars Are Not Yet Bells
‘Exhilirating’ Allison Behringer
Sissy is used to being on the outside. The new girl in her West Country school, she recently arrived with her troubled mother, prone to letting Sissy fend for herself.
But from the day Sissy fights a boy in front of Tegan, she’s no longer alone. Bonded by violence, they grow so close they feel like one being: wrapped around each other in bed at sleepovers, sending photographs to men they meet online, and scaring each other with reports of the girls being snatched at night in their town.
Over the course of the school year, they find themselves on the threshold of girlhood, with threats gathering thick and fast around them. And as their make-believe worlds bleed into their daily lives, Sissy feels herself transforming into something strange and terrifying.
Amphibian is a tender, haunting coming-of-age debut about desire, precocity and the intensity of early friendships that have the power to upend our lives.
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Reviews
Surreal and magical . . . haunting . . . mesmerising.
This heart-wrenching coming-of-age novel had me constantly near-tears. I couldn't put it down and feel haunted by every moment, every sentence.
Gripping . . . A coolly observed portrait of the intense period when influence by peers easily trumps parental control
'Has a queasily compelling power . . . Wetherall's prose is thick with the terror and wonder of those turbulent years of physical change, and comes laced with mythic, mystic resonances-and a rather disconcerting dollop of magic realism.'
'I absolutely love this book. Haunting and visceral as a fairytale, Amphibian captures girlhood in all its feral, mythic glory and horror. Sissy and Tegan have a place in my heart forever.'
'Tyler Wetherall is a fine writer and a great storyteller. Her debut novel is unlike anything else I have read. As a tale of childhood friendship, it brims with sex and violence and threat, and moves to a crescendo of strange and magical beauty. I recognised the strangeness of my own girlhood in it, and I am sure that other readers will do the same. Amphibian will stay with me for a long time. Tyler's art is to weave together a weight of observatory realist detail with the surreal - what Elizabeth Bishop called the 'surreality of the everyday'. The result here is terrific.'
'It was something special to exist in the world of this book. Amphibian captures the contradictions of adolescence: the fear of and ache for change, the repulsive and joyful explorations of one's body, the need for protection and the urge to break free. In this exhilarating and visceral story, the final years of make-believe collide with the early years of real world consequences. In Wetherall's insistence on peering into all the dark corners of adolescence, she is able to do something quite profound: to rightfully dignify the experience of girlhood. I will be thinking about these characters and this story for a long time.'
'In her debut novel, Tyler Wetherall mines the strange depths of female friendship for all of its traumatic treasure. Rarely have I felt so viscerally transported back in time as I did while reading this beautiful and haunting book. Gorgeously written and magically dressed, Amphibian resurrected for me the exquisite and ecstatic pains of girlhood.'