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This would have been a very different book if Pratchett had been able to complete it. As it is, it has some very wonderful parts that make it worth reading, but can't rank with his best. I doubt you can get through it without both laughing and crying, though.

The only self-help-type book I've ever thought was at all useful. Simple message, engagingly put forward: everyone's aim in life should be to be happy, so find what actually gives you pleasure and purpose and then do it, now.

Reads either like a synopsis for a novel, or like an over-long magazine story. Unrealistic. But some lyrical notes.

For the first half, I found this exceedingly irritating - but then it began to work and I actually got some empathy with Morley! A much better read than I initially thought, but still not really my thing.

First started reading this when I was 17. Just finished it (no, not continuous: I started it again!). It's over-long, digressive and sprawling, but eventually the set of shallow characters present at the start develop into more rounded people. Worth reading once.

Couldn't get very far with this. I find Gregory's books to be like sticking your hand in a bran tub.

Started getting more into it at just under the half-way mark, when I finally managed to get empathy with some of the characters.

If I'd read this when I was at its target-market age, it would have been one of those books that sticks in your mind and influences you for years. As it is, I still found it so enjoyable and well-written that I'm giving it 4 stars.

Whether I was just glad to see the end in sight or not, I'm not quite sure, but I did enjoy the last chapter!

The bits with Mr Mybug are better than I remembered: nicely observed characterisation. But Flora is getting on my nerves, especially in her treatment of Elphine.

An unexpected joy.

As with the last time I tried reading this, as a teenager, I'm not enjoying it. Death-by-whimsy.

Enormously good fun. Can't wait for the next one.