A fascinating story, well told.

I respect this book but I didn't enjoy it. I didn't connect with any of the deliberately unlikeable characters, and while I found Arkady's storyline to be the most absorbing, like many others who have commented here, I share concerns around the content. Personally, I'm tired of repugnant, misogynist characters such as Adam - they seem so popular particularly among male Australian writers, but who finds them interesting? His wife is not much better. By the time I'd truly become bored by the book I'd already committed to finishing it as I wanted to know what the big "twist" would be, however when it was revealed I was already skimming passages and nearly missed it!

I adored Liam Pieper's vibrant, hilarious and heartbreaking memoir so I admit I was disappointed by The Toymaker, which left me feeling frustrated and disengaged. I will be interested to see what he writes next.

The Toy Maker was a quick, easy read that unfortunately didn't raise much of a reaction from me. I didn't particularly like any of the characters so wasn't really invested in their storylines. I was happy to keep reading it but there wasn't the pleasure there that I get from other books.

Immensely readable and cleverly pieced together, this book is stuffed with terrible people doing terrible things, but somehow remains entirely enjoyable.

This book was tracking at a solid 4* but the last couple of chapters were pretty amazing and I had to bump it up to a 5*. The characters in this book are pretty horrible people doing very horrible things, but the author really gets into their heads and makes them into real people rather than unbelievable monsters. It's quite impressive.