Charged with emotion . . . a vivid portrait of the human capacity for meanness, malice - and love'

Falling Leaves is a terrible and riveting family history . . . It is also a story about endurance and the cost it can exact . . . gripping'

An illuminating account of the destructive nature of family relationships set against a backdrop of China in change

A light burns in the book that is never extinguished . . . [it is] an act, not of vengeance or bitterness, but of catharsis

The pain of so much emotional abuse leaps from every page . . . the most amazing aspect of this story is that Adeline managed to survive . . . and emerge triumphant . . . compelling'

I am still haunted by Mah's memoir . . . Riveting. A marvel of memory. Poignant proof of the human will to endure

Gabor Maté's connections - between the intensely personal and the global, the spiritual and the medical, the psychological and the political - are bold, wise and deeply moral. He is a healer to be cherished

A compelling book that will challenge your views and help lift the veil of illusion to what is truly happening in your mind and in your body

Gripping ... a powerful call for change in how we live with, love, understand, treat, and think about each other

Stunning and interrogative. . . Brilliant. . . Calling Hauser 'honest' and 'vulnerable' feels inadequate. She embraces and even celebrates her flaws, and she revels in being a provocateur. . . Much has been written on the themes Hauser excavates here, yet her perspective is singular, startlingly so. Many narratives still position finding the perfect match as a measure of whether we've led successful lives. The Crane Wife dispenses with that. For that reason, Hauser's worldview feels fresh and even radical

Intimate, all-too-relatable magic. Hauser writes like she's whispering hard-earned secrets to a friend, picking apart how she has been held hostage to her own fantasies about love and happiness in warm and vulnerable scenes. . . What a gift it is, to have the curtains lift and let us all in

As Hauser grapples with the changing shape of her life story, it's fitting that the shape of each essay and, indeed, the shape of the collection itself, are self-consciously experimental in form. . . Reading The Crane Wife is a bit like following Hauser into the Mirror Maze, her voice as narrator guiding the way through and out. Whether writing about familial or cultural stories, each text becomes a mirror in which Hauser sees herself reflected back. And in her willingness to turn inward, to truly face herself, Hauser's essays open outward, becoming themselves mirrors into which readers might gaze

I absolutely LOVED these essays. I knew I ought to ration myself to one a day in order to prolong the joy and fascination of them, but I just couldn't: I had to carry on reading and reading, like eating a whole packet of jelly babies in one sitting. What a fantastic, original, funny and touching voice! C J Hauser is a wondrous writer. This book will give so much happiness

Compassionate and funny and brave. The book is a masterclass in life writing, and a lesson in how to live a life outside the narratives that would contain us. CJ is a master story weaver. I was left wanting more, in the best way possible

In The Crane Wife, Hauser undertakes a new way for her to tell stories from her life, playing with history and personal history, exploring the possible hidden truths in her family's past and her own. The result is like interconnected short stories but about her life, the person she is and was, maybe even the person she never knew herself to be. Funny, exciting, vulnerable - truly visionary.

The Crane Wife more than delivers on the immense promise of the viral essay that served as its source. My goodness is it funny, but also so devastatingly honest and bracing. Reading it is like taking a long road trip with your wisest, sharpest friend and talking the entire way.

The Crane Wife is brilliant and beautiful - the vulnerability of her viral essay is expanded to include immense humour, pondering and further misadventures of the heart. An absolute must-read. I will be gifting this book all year long

In this perceptive and probing work, Hauser brilliantly parses the myths that shaped her understanding of love. . . Sparkling. . . A thrillingly original deconstruction of desire and its many configurations

Hauser is a delightful and agile writer, capable of speaking in multiple registers, but what all of her essays have in common is honesty, wisdom, a certain loopiness-she's an old soul with a fresh perspective and an energetic, wandering mind. The result is an imaginative and beautiful memoir, one that'll be passed through the secret sisterhood of crane wives for years.

Readers looking for something a little different in a memoir will not be disappointed. The strongest essays exemplify Hauser's keen awareness about life so far: things don't always work out as planned, love is complicated, and trusting your gut is, sometimes, the best option.

Perceptive and witty

Intimate, witty and beautifully crafted

"I am a kind of breakup pro," Hauser writes late in this lively, thoughtful, and often funny set of personal essays-at a point when the reader has learned much about how unlucky in love she's been. . . Hauser makes a welcome effort to talk about both love and culture in unconventional ways. . . A smart, inviting, and candid clutch of self-assessments

A staccato, funny, barbed, metaphor-laced, and thought-provoking memoir-in-essays. . . No matter her focus, Hauser's deductions about human nature are always arresting, delving, fresh, and exhilarating

While it's always difficult to summarize an essay collection, what holds The Crane Wife together is Hauser's unpacking of emotional truths: who do we love, and why, and what happens when they're gone? When we're alone? When we forget what it was like to love them?