Review: Coming Undone by Terri White

To everyone else, Terri White appeared to be living the dream, named one of Folio’s Top Women in US Media and accruing further awards for the magazines she was editing. In reality, she was rapidly skidding towards a mental health crisis that would land her in a locked psychiatric ward as her past caught up with her.

As well as growing up in a household in poverty, Terri endured sexual and physical abuse at the hands of a number of her mother’s partners. Her success defied all expectations, but the greater the disparity between her outer achievements and inner demons, the more she struggled to hold everything together.

Coming Undone is Terri’s documentation of her unravelling, and her precarious navigation back from a life in pieces.

Review: This book comes with care warnings for addiction, self harm, suicide, abuse and sexual assault. 

Those care warnings do mean that this book is a challenging read at times but challenging in the best possible way. This is not a book you will pick up and breeze through in one sitting. You have to take this book in decent doses and sit with it a while before moving onto a new chapter. And sit with you this book will, I am still thinking about all of the things that this writer has overcome and gone through in her life. This is a very transparent account of being a recovering addict and battling with mental health issues. 

Not only did it strike me how honest this book was, something i greatly appreciated, but this book is written so well it is almost poetic at times. It is tough to get your head round how something so horrific could be written in such a beautiful way and how things which might seem normal and even nice to some people can be so incredibly painful to others. 

I loved that this memoir is not necessarily linear but more of a reflection and so therefore events and experiences link back to others. I liked that we got a full account of what it is like to be hospitalized on a psychiatric hold and how childhood trauma can have a whole host of effects in later life. This book was an eye opener for me and I really recommend listening to the audio as it is read by the author. Take the care warnings into consideration when picking this up but I do recommend this audiobook to you. 

To order your copy now, just click the link: UK or US

Review: Clean by Juno Dawson

A razor-sharp, adrenaline rush of a novel from award-winning author Juno Dawson, Clean is Gossip Girl meets Girl, Interrupted.

'I can feel it swimming through my veins like glitter ... it's liquid gold.'

When socialite Lexi Volkov almost overdoses, she thinks she's hit rock bottom.

She's wrong. Rock bottom is when she's forced into an exclusive rehab facility.

From there, the only way is up for Lexi and her fellow inmates, including the mysterious Brady.

As she faces her demons, Lexi realises love is the most powerful drug of all ... 

It's a dirty business getting clean ...

Review: Ok this review comes with a lot of trigger warnings so make sure you read the synopsis before deciding whether this book is for you. But I will tell you that this book was definitely for me. I loved this book. The premise behind it sounds like it is going to be a usual story of addiction and recovery but this novel is so much more clever than that. I am actually in awe of how this author managed to come up with this plot line and its twists and turns, I don't think I could write something so intricately crafted. 

Lexi as a character is a little hard to get on with but she challenges the reader throughout the book and she had definitely grown on me but the end of the novel. As the synopsis might suggest, she is entitled and selfish and so she makes for great reading material. The journey that she goes on over the course of the book, all its ups and downs is gruelling and so i did definitely sympathise with her throughout MOST of the story. There are also some other really interesting and diverse characters in this book, some of which I would LOVE to read more about, so if there are any spin offs planned-count me in!

Of course this book deals with a range of issues and some of the drug taking and the recovery process from that is quite graphic. It put me in mind of Trainspotting in parts but I really feel like I have learned something after finishing this book having never been part of the world that Lexi is part of. It was eye opening, compelling and educating. It was entertaining and definitely a page turner. If this book sounds like it is something you are in a space to read at this moment in time then I definitely recommend it and I can't wait to see what Juno Dawson comes up with next!

To order your copy now, just click the link: UK or US

Review: All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner

From the author of Good in Bed, In Her Shoes and Who Do You Love comes a novel about a woman with a dark secret ...

Allison Weiss is a typical working mother, trying to balance a business, ageing parents, a demanding daughter and a marriage. But when the website she develops becomes a huge success, she finds herself challenged to the point of being completely overwhelmed. 

As she struggles to hold her life together and meet the needs of all the people around her, Allison finds that the painkillers she was prescribed for a back injury help her deal with more than just physical discomfort - they make her feel calm and get her through the increasingly hectic days. Sure, she worries that the bottles seem to empty a bit faster each week, but it's not like she's some Hollywood starlet partying all night. It's not as if she has an actual problem. 

Until she ends up in a world she never thought she'd experience outside of a movie theatre: rehab. And as Allison struggles to get her life back on track, she learns a few life lessons along the way.

Review: I've had this book for a while, but after reading Hungry Heart by this author all about her life and writing, I wanted to hear more from her and so I finally got round to picking up this one, boy am I glad that I did!

This book reminded me so much of Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes (one of my favourite authors) although it is definitely set in today's world of smart phones and aniline pharmacies and of course this book is set in the USA. I have to say that I loved the setting for this one, it encompassed everything about family life and yet had the feel of someone still trying to live a life of independence and have it all really. It really does explore the question that we all ask ourselves and are asking by others on a daily basis, can we really have it all?

Allison is a hard character to like because of her thoughts and actions and yet she is such an easy character to relate to because of those thoughts and the fact that she is trying to, and thinks she is doing, the best that she can! I really felt her pain and her struggle and could see why she was continually telling herself things that weren't true. I loved the fact that she was a blogger, that made it even easier to relate to. When you have a job like that or even just a commitment to that kind of entity, it can be really hard to switch off because you are always within reach of a computer and always connected to social media!

Obviously this storyline involves addiction, but the kind of addiction that isn't always explored in mainstream media. We often think of people who are drug addicts living and behaving like those in Trainspotting, living up to the stereotype but Allison proved that there is access to a range of different drugs in many different walks of life and I really love that Jennifer Weiner has brought this to the forefront here in this novel!

This was a really gripping read and I really found myself routing for Allison and her family. I think the issues dealt with are dealt with well and I really loved the way the book ended as well, not giving anything away of course! This was a great read and I can't wait to read more by this author!

To order your copy now, click here!

Review: One Step Closer To You by Alice Peterson

After Polly ends her relationship with the father of her young son, Louis, she is determined to move on. All she wants is to focus on her job, her friends and to be a good mum. No more looking over her shoulder. No more complications...

Then Polly meets Ben.

Ben is guardian of his niece, Emily. They become close, with Polly teaching Ben how to plait Emily's hair, and Ben playing football with Louis. Their friendship is unexpected. Polly’s never been happier.

But when Louis's dad reappears in their life, all Polly’s mistakes come back to haunt her and her resolve weakens when he swears he has changed.

Will she give herself a second chance to love?

Review: I really enjoyed this book. Once i got going with it, I absolutely raced through to the finish, staying up late to complete it. It was a bit of a slow start for me but i think that this is possibly because this book jumps around in time and once you get to used to the shift every chapter, you really settle into it. Initially, I wasn't sure who was who or where in time I was. The chapters are each headed up with what year you are in though and I think that overall, it was an excellent way to structure the book, because eventually you are brought up to date and the two storylines become one. 

I liked Polly as a character, she made some bad choices in her life but then we all do so that shows she is only human. Thank you to the lovely Alice Peterson for writing something who isn't perfect and has the same human qualities as us all. I think that she is a really strong character as well as soon as she is able to see the light and take her life into her own hands. The supporting characters in the book are also great. Her brother Hugo is lovely and funny, her son Louis also provides for some very funny moments and the older members of her family all add to the juiciness of the storyline! Matthew, as a character, made me really uncomfortable, but then that is all part of the plot of the book and so that is a good thing, I didn't necessarily like reading about him though-but again his character was so human that he could've been real!

Ben and Emily are just lovely, you'll really find yourself rooting for them as you read the book. He is just so clueless and she is just tooooo cute. Some of the things she says just broke my heart and Ben broke my heart as well in one particular bit, but she is awesome for dancing in the mud with!

The storyline deals with addiction and abuse but in a very sensitive way and it really is not what the book is all about, there is friendship and love and strength and cooking in the book as well. I think initially i preferred the flashbacks to the present day storyline but when they both come together I think I liked them equally, both contributing to Polly's life story, her decisions and her future. I really really enjoyed this book. Alice Peterson has a real way with storytelling and every one of her books has had me racing to the end, desperate to know what as going to happen and I am sure you will find the same thing when you pick up this lovely lovely novel!