‘It’s the kind of fiction that Patricia Highsmith excelled at, or Zoë Heller in Notes on a Scandal… Desperate to be seen, Ruth’s like an Anita Brookner heroine on steroids. The clash between her resentful, sardonic intelligence and Sookie’s online self-satisfaction is deliciously uncomfortable… The fascination of Other People’s Fun is less its plot than its queasy portrait of stalking and manipulation. The best comedy is sharpened by pain, and what Lane has pinpointed in her flint-sharp novel is something that has a highly modern resonance as the world of the haves and have-nots becomes increasingly polarised and toxic. When Ruth gets her revenge, it is as nasty as it is total. You will, I fear, howl with satisfaction.’
Amanda Craig, Guardian

‘My greatest cause for rejoicing was a new novel from Harriet Lane, the laureate of stalking, long after those of us who loved Alys, Always and Her had given up hope of any more. Like its predecessors, Other People’s Fun has a female narrator who seems at first to be a nondescript mouse but turns out to have sharp little teeth and a scarily observant eye. It’s funny, creepy and unputdownable.’
Francis Wheen, Books of the Year, Spectator

‘In the opening pages of Harriet Lane’s short, sharp novel the book’s narrator, Ruth, runs into a former classmate named Sookie… Ruth is stuck in the doldrums of midlife, navigating the lonely administration of divorce and staying afloat with corporate translations. Sookie is rich, self-involved and listless. “Perhaps she could do with a friend like me,” Ruth resolves… Beware a sudden and sympathetic new companion, especially in a Harriet Lane novel.
Ruth becomes Sookie’s confidante. She listens with guilty fascination, “despising her, despising myself.” It is Ruth who awaits the “thrill of the three pulsing dots,” and Ruth who is summoned to dinners and real estate viewings where Sookie displays her beautiful life with astounding obliviousness. Eventually, it is Ruth who becomes counselor and conspirator to Sookie’s extramarital affair. This promotion from observer to player grants her a frightening new power, and Other People’s Fun turns on how she will use it.… Subtly, painfully, Lane reveals Ruth’s vulnerabilities. These moments are more affecting for their scarcity, and for the ordinariness of the wounds: spousal neglect, minor humiliations…The novelty of this tenderness is just as moving.
Occasionally, Lane looks away from her central pair to peer at another of Ruth’s acquaintances. These glimpses are like brief monologues from women in middle age, and gloriously drawn… Lane is able to summon a character or relationship with impressive brevity. We understand Sookie and Ruth’s teenage dynamic even without a single flashback, because Sookie would return Ruth’s essays “warped and stained with the Venn diagrams left by cans of Coke and mugs of instant coffee.”
There are quiet novels that attempt to go out in a cacophony of violence and twists. But Lane grants us an ending true to Ruth’s demeanor: unassuming, in possession of a strange and unpleasant power. I can think of few final scenes as barbaric as that of “Other People’s Fun,” and not a drop of blood is spilled.’
Abigail Dean, New York Times Book Review

‘Like its narrator, [the plot] reveals itself slowly. Lane’s novel leans on its writing and characterisation, which are tight, precise, well observed… Every character Lane creates is vivid and recognisable… Lane deploys no rose-tinted spectacles. The majority of her characters are neither likeable nor sympathetic, and the rest are painted skilfully before being moved over – their lives are not the ones being exposed here. Instead, with creeping unease and a steady building of pace, the author knits a tale whose agonising conclusion leaves us rattled… And at the end of it all, we’re forced to make a choice: are we more Ruth than we think? Or more Sookie? Does power come from having it all — whatever “all” means — or observing it all?’
Lucy Denyer, Daily Telegraph

‘A taut, acid-tinged psychological novel looking at friendship in the age of social media… When Ruth unexpectedly reconnects with Sookie, a former classmate whose life appears flawlessly charmed, their renewed acquaintance becomes a compelling, uneasy dance of longing, resentment and quiet obsession.
Lane excels at the slow burn. Instead of big twists, she builds tension through microscopic social humiliations, tiny cruelties and the way Ruth hovers just outside the frame; watching, wanting, calculating. The relationship between the two women is exquisitely uncomfortable, laced with black humor and the dread of knowing something will inevitably go wrong. And when Ruth finally asserts herself, the result is both inevitable and shockingly satisfying.
Elegant and spiky, Other People’s Fun is less a traditional thriller than a forensic portrait of toxic friendship and the fantasies we project online. It’s a quietly vicious story that will leave fans of psychological suspense deliciously unsettled.’
Jordan Snowden, Seattle Times

‘A read-in-one-sit­ting book… Ruth is a bril­liantly com­plic­ated char­ac­ter – deeply sym­path­etic but dis­hon­est and deceit­ful, both with her­self and oth­ers. Lane’s writ­ing is sharp and obser­v­ant: she uses very spe­cific cul­tural ref­er­ences to build up detailed pic­tures of her char­ac­ters, both to situ­ate them pre­cisely in a par­tic­u­lar social class and also to high­light their shal­low obses­sions.
Where the novel is par­tic­u­larly good is in the way it spikes the nar­ciss­istic nature of social media… Ruth is the other side of the coin: the voyeur, look­ing on but reveal­ing noth­ing.
Although this isn’t a thriller, there’s a sense of unease that builds right from the begin­ning of the book, and things get increas­ingly tense as the reader won­ders what Ruth will do next. When the dys­func­tional dynamic between the two women comes to a climax, it’s cata­strophic – for one of them at least. The end­ing is so per­fectly taut that I read the last few pages through my fin­gers.’
Joanne Finney, Good Housekeeping

‘Lane returns with a tense, sharply observed novel of class, social media and manipulation, simmering with quiet dread.’
the i-paper

‘Clever and compelling.’
Daily Mail

‘Waspishly funny, acutely perceptive… a brilliant novel.’
Woman & Home

‘I routinely check some authors to see if they have a new book out — and Harriet Lane is one of them… If you loved Notes On A Scandal, then this is for you.’
Prima

‘The Jane Austen of the Instagram age on brilliant form.’
Julie Burchill

‘Utterly superb. New fave author!’
Sophie Hannah

‘I hoovered it up because it hooked me in from the start. Such an entertaining read, very clever and funny.’
Philippa Perry

‘She paints menacing middle-class scenarios that are dark and also hilarious… I loved this book.’
Nuala McGovern, Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio 4

‘Unputdownable.’
The Bookseller