The Yips by Nicola Barker

Published 2012 · 560 pages · 140,000 words · about 16 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction

How hard is The Yips to read?

The Yips scores 54 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 55 out of 100
Golf, Irish vocabulary.
Sentence structure: 55 out of 100
Clear prose.
Abstraction: 55 out of 100
Crisis, masculinity.
Information density: 52 out of 100
Irish setting.
Narrative indirection: 55 out of 100
Third person.
Symbolic density: 52 out of 100
Golf, yips.
Ironic distance: 58 out of 100
Comic observation.
Resolution withholding: 52 out of 100
Resolution reached.
Structural complexity: 52 out of 100
Linear narrative.

How The Yips is regarded

The Yips holds a literary regard score of 52 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

About the author

Nicola Barker