Magnificent, hilarious, insightful- what more could you ask for? ( )

God I wish this guy had more books. Easily, now, my favourite Australian writer. Purely for the fact that when finishing both books, I could easily have started them again. Full of humour, tragedy, shit and piss. I love it. ( )

This is a very quirky book and I think, for some people, it will be one of those marmite novels; you'll either love it or hate it. Despite the incredibly long chapters, it was certainly a very addictive book as the story of Aldo's life unfolds throughout the pages. I didn't find it terribly funny, although there are some moments of dry wit, but mostly I felt quite sad. Aldo seems to be the unluckiest man I've ever read about but he really doesn't care and he sees the world in his own inimitable way. I did laugh out loud at his reference to saddults and businessapiens - people that you or I would term normal working adults!

Liam is Aldo's best friend from school and he's using Aldo as his muse to write a book. Aldo is certainly giving him plenty of material for a novel, sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes amusing. I don't think Aldo really wanted to grow up, he certainly didn't value his life or ever consider the feelings of those around him. This still doesn't stop his friends, or indeed the reader, from loving him. Aldo is Aldo; there's no way to describe him, he's definitely one of a kind.

With such wickedly humorous observations, Aldo is certainly a character who grows on you throughout the book. At times I felt I was encroaching on a particularly personal and poignant moment in his life but then he bounces back Aldo-style and my guilt was quickly assuaged.

Thought-provoking and addictive, Quicksand is a novel I really enjoyed but it's really hard to put my finger on why I found it so enjoyable. I think it was just that the character of Aldo is so unique, unlucky and carefree that you can't help but be drawn into his life story.

I received this book from the publisher, Sceptre, in exchange for an honest review. ( )

There's some great writing in this book. There are moments of great humour, interspersed with great melancholy, a feature that often results in the best type of sitcom. Unfortunately, this book all takes its characters far too literally. For example, the narrator, Liam, admits that his friend Aldo can be boring - and indeed he can be! While much of his testimony is moving, parts of it are so dull I found myself almost skim-reading to be done with them. Liam claims at one point not to like plots - a trait perhaps he shares with Toltz.

There are moments of genius in this book, but there is also too much rambling, and the book is at least 30 pages too long - I found these last few pages unnecessary.

Maybe I'm not the right demographic; maybe I'm just too uncouth to appreciate this style; but after enjoying reading this for three-quarters of its length, I started to lose patience with it. Either it's too clever for me, or trying to be too clever for its own good. ( )

Toltz's previous novel Fraction of the Whole was a fire burst of creativity and humor. Quicksand takes those elements and pressure cooks them into a Jobian story that examines what it means to be alive while constantly suffering the creator's ill humor directed distinctly at you. Throws off sparks of inventiveness and wit, and if ultimately Toltz has no final answer to offer us (for could one even exist?), his story's end leaves one with the impression that humor and beauty can still always be found in the spaces between. ( )