Gorgeous book - Rated 
This book made an instant impression on me. I read it in a night; it's and one of the most lush, romantic, beautifully written novels I have read.
Strange, beautiful, poignant. - Rated
I read this book first of all about a decade ago and remember loving it then. I picked it up recently and decided to re-read it, always worried as I am when re-reading a book that I have loved that the experience will not be the same and that I'll end up wondering why I had loved it so much to begin with. However with this book I was not dissppointed.
It's difficult to put into words how beautiful this novel actually is. The story plays like a simple love story but there is so much more to it. An older man falls for a beautiful and mysterious boy who wanders into the Bar one day. Set to a backdrop of an almost fantasy London where the streets aren't safe, the novel chronicles how O (the older man) and Boy (the younger man) develop into a couple with the help of their guardian angel, Madame/Mother.
Strange. Beautiful. Poignant.
Read it.
Hypnotic, exquisite but a little frustrating! - Rated 
I read this book when it first came out and I must have enjoyed it because I've kept a copy for all these years but when I picked it up off the shelf to re-read I had absolutely no memory of it- usually a book stays somewhere in the subconscious but as I began it I thought I'd never read it before. Until, that is, Bartlett's hypnotic prose began to draw me in once again. The plot is a simple love story- Boy meets Older Man so nothing there was memorable enough to stay with me over the years but Bartlett's style is exquisite- it's a mixture of kitchen sink drama, fairy tale, gay coming of age story, myth and great tragedy yet it ends up being none of these. Enigmatic is probably the word for it but that makes it sound inaccessible which it isn't. At times it is a book of extraordinary power and beautiful writing, in places it is a little frustrating and borders on being pointless but it is certainly worth reading even if time hasn't led it to be the "classic" it promised to be when it was first published. I'm putting it back on my book shelf to re-discover in another fifteen or so years.
Don't waste your time or money! - Rated 
This is without doubt the most dis-jointed, pretentious and self-indulgent drivel that I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. I realised by the time I reached the end of the first chapter that it was going to be hard going, but I forced myself to continue in the hope that it would improve. It did not! None of the characters had any substance, and it progressively got worse until it reached its dismal non-conclusion.
Sexy, erotic, romantic, fascinating cast of characters - Rated
This book is short is one of the best works of gay-oriented fiction I have ever read. The book has a varied and fascinating cast of characters, in addition to being very sexy and romantic. Neil Bartlett has an incredible power of capturing the beauty of the English Language. 'Ready To Catch Him Should He Fall' was definately a page turner for me. I was somewhat disappointed with 'The House on Brooke Street', however.
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