The language is playful, sometimes dense, but always intelligent and original as Main dips in and out of the authorial voice, subject and observer. The stories can be enjoyed in their own right, but sequentially, they form a substantial work; a book which travels far beyond nineteeth-century Mitteleuropa to probe the meaning of our place in the world today; the fragile foundations that shape identity, whether chosen or inherited.
— Litro
"Across five stylistically diverse chapters, Vesna Mian tells us stories about those whose actions and decisions, loves and deficiencies, fantasies and hardships led to her becoming a person who can write a book in which memory is challenged to reveal fractured, imperfect truths. Through a complexity of voices and perspectives, she has created a deep and beautiful work of speculative autobiography, one which always acknowledges the essential fiction of our own memories."
— The Unfortunates
"I read this book in a few hours and absorbing it, is like a long digestion because of the thematic treated, the characters introduced to us, readers. . . . This book is a gem, trust me. You'll love it and you'll treasure forever."
— Anna Maria Polidori, Alfemminile
"Croatian-born novelist Vesna Main writes unusual and formally ambitious fiction. . . . Only a Lodger… And Hardly That is subtitled 'a fictional autobiography' and hovers somewhere between memoir and novel, also playing with perspective and style. Main writes about a difficult upbringing in a compelling, continuous monologue before switching to sparser, more fragmentary prose, while later sections narrate the histories of her grandparents."
— New Statesman
"Only a Lodger… And Hardly That leaves us with a different way to consider the past and our ancestors and encourages us to look for new ways to tell their stories, as well as our own."
— In Under 300