The first adult novel from the million-copy bestselling, prize-winning author of How I Live Now, is a blisteringly funny, touching story of a man whose love life is going to the dogs.
'Real adult life seemed to exist over there, somewhere as distant and unreachable as Uranus. He had no idea how people crossed over to this place, or why; over all, the demands of being grown up seemed exhausting. He wondered why no one had written a book called How To Be A Person.'
Jonathan Trefoil's boss is unhinged, his relationship baffling and his apartment just the wrong side of legal. His girlfriend wants to marry someone just like him -- only richer and more organised with a different sense of humour.
On the plus side, his two flatmates are determined to fix his life -- or possibly to destroy it altogether. It's difficult to be certain because, being dogs, they only speak dog.
Poor Jonathan. He doesn't remember life being this confusing back in the good old days before everyone expected him to act like a person, but one thing he knows for sure: If he can make it in New York City, he can make it anywhere.
But can he get out of advertising, meet the girl of his dreams and figure out the gender of his secret crush?
Given how it's going so far, probably not.
About the Author
Meg Rosoff grew up in a suburb of Boston. She graduated from Harvard in 1979 and moved to New York City, where she worked for the New York Times and People magazine, among others. In 1989 she moved to London, and entered the advertising industry. Fifteen years and four jobs later, her first YA novel, How I Live Now, took the world by storm, selling over one million copies in thirty-six territories. It was made into a film, directed by Kevin Macdonald, starring Saoirse Ronan and George Mackay. It won the Guardian Children's Prize and the Printz Award in the US, and numerous prizes internationally. Her subsequent five novels have been awarded or shortlisted for, among others, the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Prize. Her last novel, Picture Me Gone, was shortlisted for the National Book Award in the US in 2013. Meg is frequently a trenchant and witty contributor to arts programmes and newspapers. She is keynote speaker at many writers' conferences, not only in the UK and USA but also Australia and New Zealand. She lives in London with her husband, the painter Paul Hamlyn, and their daughter.
Industry Reviews
A screwball treat about two dogs and their owner, set in New York * Sunday Times, Must Read *
Hilarious, thoughtful, touching * Daily Mail *
Surreal, charming and very, very funny * Daily Express *
Like Ephron, Rosoff has a lightness of touch, and is also a clever comic writer: her dialogue is sharp, her characters keenly observed and ruthlessly well realised * Sunday Times *
A loveable novel that has the power to make readers of all ages laugh * The Times *
Fizzes with memorable one-liners .. . I can't think of many recent novels that show the same almost Joseph Heller-like ability to express abiding pessimism with such irresistible comic zest * Daily Telegraph *
Wonderfully romantic as well as brilliantly satirical ... An absolute delight from start to finish -- Wendy Holden * Daily Mail *
Very smart and extremely funny * Observer *
An absolute delight ... Set in a New York that has all the charm of a Nora Ephron screenplay -- Sarra Manning * Red *
A brilliant take on finding love in New York * Stylist *
Both involving and moving ... Witty, sardonic, thoroughly enjoyable -- Philip Womack * Spectator *
Brave and bolshy, impossible to predict or to pigeonhole * Guardian *
Brilliantly witty, refreshingly original and laugh-out-loud hilarious, this book really is a must-read * Heat *
Every sentence is crafted and weighted with beauty but it's the intelligence and shaping sensibility with which the story is told that make it something special * Sunday Times *
Jonathan Unleashed marks a swerve into novels for grown-ups, but her idiosyncratic story-telling chutzpah remains constant ... This shaggy dog story is told with such vibrant and subversive wit ... Also a brilliantly detailed snapshot of - to tweak the title of one of her finest novels - how we live now -- Benjamin Evans * Independent on Sunday *
Meg Rosoff has the gift of being able to talk to the reader with a directness that goes like an arrow to the heart. * The Times *
I completely fell in love with it, its confused but endearing hero, its wit, its portrait of New York and its dogs. It's the kind of romantic comedy, both wise and hilarious, I always hope to find in a movie and never do. I'm sure it's going to be a huge hit, and if it doesn't become a Nora Ephron-style film I'll be amazed. Even as a big fan of Meg's work, it took me by surprise -- Amanda Craig
A wonderful, captivating writer * Daily Telegraph *
One must simply revel in the joyful singularity of Rosoff's latest masterpiece * Guardian *
No one writes the way Rosoff does - as if she's thrown away the rules. I love her fizzy honesty, her pluck, her way of untangling emotion through words * Daily Telegraph *
The only predictable thing about Meg Rosoff is that each book will be entirely different from the last * Daily Mail *
Rosoff's writing is luminously beautiful * Financial Times *
It is only occasionally that a writer comes along with a voice so stridently pure and direct and funny that you simply can't question it - you tumble willingly into its thrall -- Julie Myerson * Guardian *
A wonderfully original voice * New Statesman *
Intelligent, ironic and darkly funny * Time Out *
Genius! -- Anthony Horowitz
Mordantly funny and searingly well written, her books read like Samuel Beckett on ecstasy * The Times *
I completely fell in love with Jonathan Unleashed, its confused but endearing hero, its wit, its portrait of New York and its dogs. It's the kind of romantic comedy, both wise and hilarious, I always hope to find in a movie and never do. I'm sure it's going to be a huge hit, and if it doesn't become a Nora Ephron-style film I'll be amazed. Even as a big fan of Meg's work, it took me by surprise -- Amanda Craig
The wonderful Meg Rosoff (How to Live Now) has written her first novel for adults, Jonathan Unleashed, A story of a man whose private life is going to the dogs -- Erica Wagner * Harper's Bazaar *
A quirky romantic comedy that'll make you smile -- Maria O'Connor * Grazia *
This is a sweetly told page-turner. Basically the answer to all of life's conundrums: be more -- Emily Phillips * Grazia *
'Rosoff, much admired YA novelist, turns her elegant comic touch to adult preoccupations with this effervescent satire on modern urban living ... His workplace is a comic delight full of self-styled hipsters spouting meaningless jargon ... Jonathan's tale may be eccentric but its teeth are sharp' * Metro *
A quirky, contemporary romance * Big Issue North *
An exhilarating read that makes abiding pessimism very funny indeed * Spectator Books of the Year *
She wreaks revenge on the industry in her newest novel Jonathan Unleashed, which includes hilarious parodies of management jargon...a delightful romcom for adults, Jonathan Unleashed, about a millennial New Yorker whose life becomes the concern of the two dogs he is looking after, Dante and Sissy -- Danuta Kean * Mslexia *
A comic must-read for any teen curious about the adult world they are about to enter -- Kate Figes * Mail on Sunday, 'Book of the Year' *
Hugely entertaining. I love this book for its freshness, wit and charm * Mail on Sunday *
a screwball treat * Sunday Times, Summer Reading *
Witty, fresh and charming * Mail on Sunday, Summer Reading *
