I really wanted to like this one. Everything I heard about it made it sound fun, but I couldn't get past certain plot points and details that just seemed a little too... trope-y? I can't quite think of the best way to word that.
I think it does a great job of talking about mental health without making the conversation super serious and hard to stomach, which I definitely give this book major props for.

Beautiful poetic writing and nothing like I expected. I read this to my three kids, half thinking it was going to be a child's fantasy (my fault for not really reading the blurb), but we were all captivated by the characters and the emotional ride that they went through

This was an unexpected book. Nothing about the title or the cover would confirm to any unsuspecting reader the content they are about to encounter. The blurb, obviously, might help, but that, too, is a little vague (for good reasons).
Wendy is our protagonist. We watch the entire sequence of events through her eyes. The events are not sequential, and some of her past is introduced to us over time as afterthoughts to give further context to her state of mind.
I did not expect to enjoy the book when I first ventured in. I thought it would just be a simple tale of a deluded woman who makes wrong choices in life. Wendy wants to be a poet but works a job at a call centre. She ends up quitting on a whim one day, and another woman quits with her. This second person becomes a sort of mild obsession for Wendy. Cat is not necessarily a good influence, although she helps bolster the latter's confidence. Cat has her own deep-rooted issues, and we see how that impacts Wendy's choices and what brought her to the point she is in when the book begins. Given all the ups and downs the plot takes, it had a very reasonably sensible ending to wrap things up.
The format of the book helps make this a more complex and layered narrative.
I would recommend this book to the more adventurous reader looking for something different to read.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

Whilst this dealt with some very deep and difficult topics it also managed to remain humourous throughout. A really enjoyable read, fast paced and keeps you wanting to know where the story will wind next

This book was laugh-out-loud funny! I loved the stream of consciousness inner monologue and the exploration of mental health with a focus on female friendship. It pulled me in immediately and read super quickly.

I liked the writing and how the story didn’t stale at all, just kept pushing through and intrigued me with the diverse cast of characters their interactions.
I’ll read more books by the author in the future after reading this one. This author writes with such verve and positivity and emotional intelligence.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this novel. I encourage you to check this one out! Really solid read. Upbeat and cute!

I think it was a fascinating choice to write the book from the perspective of Wendy, as she is so naive and struggling in the world. It was a great way to put yourself directly into her shoes, and you shared in her joy and sorrow by seeing things from her perspective. At the same time, it was challenging when she wouldn't see the bigger picture, particularly in how she was treated by others. However, you get to grow with her as she figures things out as well.

Structurally, the book goes back and forth in the timeline and narrative, and given Wendy's propensity to tell tall tales, it occasionally was challenging to determine whether something was actually happening or not. There is a particular fakeout near the end that was hard.

Overall, I thought this was a unique and charming story, with its own quirks - all of which could be used to describe Wendy and Cat. If you are someone that has struggled with anxiety or other mental health issues, or just struggled socially, I think this would be an interesting book.

It reminded me of Everyone In This Room Will Someday Die by Emily Austin, so if you liked that book, I'd recommend this (and vice versa).

What a funny little book, I recommend everyone pick this one up as I am sure you will thoroughly enjoy it,

This is such a powerful and beautiful book. I highlighted many quotes when reading this on my kindle and will carry these with me. Such a poignant read.

“I love putting words in order on a page and making something that I think is bigger than the sum of its parts. I love having time to arrange them and play with them. I wish I weren’t so afraid of words in the real world, I wish they didn’t turn into glue in my mouth so often. Life is an unlimited cascade of parallel possibilities and every single word alters the path. That’s petrifying: it’s fossilising. How can people handle that responsibility?

It’s words. It always has been. Words are the problem.”

What a book. What a beautiful, brilliant book.

I picked this up because something about it made me think of “The Goldfinch” – there’s a painting at the centre of a crime, and two people that are bound to it – two women, Wendy and Cat (who’d rather not be called Catriona, thank you very much). While there are few similarities aside from these few details, the emotional impact that this book had on me is on part with “The Goldfinch”.

Wendy loves words. Rare words, long words, words with unexpected meaning. She loves putting them to use as she writes poetry. She’s not a poet, though – to be a poet, someone else must recognise you as such.

That someone else happens to be Cat, a woman Wendy meets by chance the day they quit the same job. Cat, the enigmatic artist, draws Wendy into her peculiar and slighly dangerous world, and both their lives change forever.

Throughout the non-linear narrative, Boyle crafts a compelling life of an ordinary woman who ends up in rather extraordinary circumstances. There’s so much love and tragedy to it. The humour shines from the first pages, and the emotional punches are delivered in a way that makes the reader’s heart ache – at least mine did. The book touches on experiences such as alienation, social struggles, transition into adulthood, and how capitalism impacts creativity. Boyle’s prose is a joy to read, and I may have several pages of quotes saved in my docs to go back to.

I cannot commend Boyle enough for the way Wendy was written. She’s such an incredible example of an unreliable narrator, and her guilty conscience makes her feel so painfully human. Wendy’s depression, anxiety, and executive dysfunction were portrayed in a way that felt raw and real, particularly as someone who has gone through these experiences myself. The passage of time, the trailing shadow of it all – you can tell there’s an intimate understanding how mental illness feels.

“The Tick and the Tock of the Crocodile Clock” is equal parts funny and bittersweet. It’s delightful, witty, and profound. The quote I’ve picked is quite accurate, since Im struggling for words to describe exactly the impact this book had on me. I have little doubt that it will end up as one of my favourites for the year, and I look forward to what the author might have in store in the future.

great read!

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read this book in exchange for my review.

The tick and rock of the crocodile clock is really funny. There are many laugh out loud moments throughout the book and keeps the reader really engaged throughout. The characters in this book are really great and I loved the storyline too.

This is such a fun read that will have you laughing out loud and may also make you cry! I enjoyed the quirkiness of it from the title of the book to the characters especially that of Wendy and her entertaining narration! A great read that's thought provoking and moving!

The Tick and Tock of the Crocodile Clock
It’s all about words. That theme comes up often in this earnest, confusing, and genuine book about Wendy, a young would-be poet who exists fully in the world of her imagination and is simply lost in the world in which we are all forced to reside.

The book is a gem. Starting with our narrator hiding (terrified) in her gran’s attic with a stolen painting at her side, the story backtracks to an explanation of how she got there, beginning with her short tenure at a Glasgow call center where her daily game is to sneak as many unusual words as possible into her calls. Wendy loves language and weaves wishful fiction into her own backstory (always confessing and eventually letting the truth out). When she quits the call center, she is surprised when several others accompany her in the walk out. One fellow decamper is Catriona, an artist who is wild, wonderful, and has (it becomes clear) been struggling with mental illness for some time.

The story is humorous, surprising, sad, and deeply insightful. I admit to almost closing the book because I got frustrated with the way Wendy could not handle her life the way I thought she should — a good lesson for me about the (should be obvious) fact that my way is not what is best for everyone! I was afraid the book was about self-destructive tendencies which I have little patience with, but it actually was not. I loved her interior monologue that laid bare her development into a whole person making decisions that were right for her.

Lots of great use of language including some truly “new” (to me) words such as curglaffic; ultracrepudarian; lexiphanicism. Seriously, they don’t even begin to sound familiar to me, never mind managing to use them in a call center dialog sentence!

Not surprisingly, there are some great quotes. Here are a few:
“Honestly, I don’t think call centres have the strength of character to be hell. In call centres even bright things or bright people get washed out and individuality is smothered by customer service.”

“Thank you for calling Chay Turley Telephone Banking. How may I dissuade you from truculence?”

“They’re mostly useless in conversation, because people look at you like you’ve just flown in from some fantasy land if you say them. Having to explain the meaning of a word every time you use it goes against the whole point of having words in the first place. I like them anyway; their uselessness adds to their mystique.”

“Her mind is ponderous, like an iguana. When you say something to her it takes a good two seconds to process it — two whole seconds of silent glaring as the words take root. When someone like that meets someone like me it doesn’t ever turn out well. I can’t bear those two seconds of silence, so I have to fill the gap. A lot of the time I fill it with incriminating evidence to my detriment.”

“She’s beginning to pick up speed, like a juggernaut of discipline ready to smash through me with sheer momentum.”

“There’s no amount of shyness that will diminish the West of Scotland impulse to respond to compliments with aggression — it would be weird not to.”

“I wish I weren’t so afraid of words in the real world, I wish they didn’t turn into glue in my mouth so often. Life is an unlimited cascade of parallel possibilities and every single word alters the path. That’s petrifying; it’s fossilising. How can people handle that responsibility?”

“There’s a miniature sun made of gratitude right in the centre of my rib cage and its beams are tearing out of me, but, because we’re in the real world where words can’t be retrieved once they leave your mouth, I don’t know how to tell her how much it means to me.”

“…but even when his expression was flat, the lines of it were an origami template for a smile.”

There were many words that floated through my head to describe this story as I read it. Cozy, fantastical, poignant, and heartbreaking were the main ones that stuck. The Tick and Tock of the Crocodile Clock is a beautiful story about Wendy, a newly unemployed woman who doesn't know what comes next. She meets Cat and they form a relationship like neither of them have ever had before. Their adventures and the stories they tell each other will leave you laughing right along with them, while simultaneously being confused, because that's just how their minds work. This book was wonderful and well worth the read!

A little wacky and chaotic, this book was a fast-paced reading experience. Even though on the surface it seems light, there are more layers to the story of Wendy and Cat, and the art heist that is a starting and an ending point of this novel.

It's interesting how skilfully Kenny Boyle toys with reader's perspective on what actually have happened, introducing a narrative in which Wendy's made-up stories collide with way less romantic reality.

"The Tick and the Tock of the Crocodile Clock" is a story about a friendship, grief, personal grudges and the complexity of familial bonds. The events portrayed in the novel are quite ordinary, but extraordinary at the same time. People are not what they seem to be, and so are the events that happened before and after the aforementioned art heist.

Almost until the end the readers won't be able to guess the nature of the heist that at the end becomes very clear. Was it committed out of financial necessity, boredom, on a dare? For the majority of the story we don't know. But when we do, I think there comes compassion and understanding.

A debut novel that evades description without falling into the usual pits. Definitely quirky but in the best of ways, as Boyle’s style is so unique. It is written like a confession to the reader, but by someone who clearly loves to tell stories. Wendy is a wannabe poet and collector of words. A young woman in today’s world trying to figure it out. Without falling into the teen angst that is so much of YA, Boyle delicately manoeuvres mental health issues with wit, empathy and charm. This is true creative writing… certain words put together in certain ways to create a piece of art, one that is worthy of being studied from many angles. Colourful, loveable, vibrant, exciting.

Found this hard to start but when the book started flowing this was a great read, not normally what I would read but throughly enjoyed the book in the end.
Great start to an upcoming author
Highly recommend read

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Tick and the Tock of the Crocodile Clock by Kenny Boyle.

Wendy is a woman with a serious penchant for big, unused words, which she uses to entertain herself at the phone center where she works. Her head is her favorite place to dwell, which ultimately leaves her losing a job, but gaining a friend.

Cat is wild, artistic, and afraid of little, and shows Wendy how to live on the edge, something that Wendy has always craved, adventure. Cat also teaches Wendy to lean into her love of words, and to let the world see what she has to offer. So it's no surprise that Wendy finds herself in a wild art heist, something that her younger self could never even imagine.

What a fresh, unique, and absolutely colorful story. I hope that Kenny Boyle has more in store for us, because I was charmed from beginning to end. I loved the Peter Pan references throughout, and the idea of these two friends being the lost girls. I loved the adventure, woven with incredibly human emotions, loss and grief, that the author masterfully frames. Definitely worth the read.