Categories
Fiction Romance

Very Nearly Normal, Hannah Sunderland

If you loved Sophie Kinsella’s ‘My Not So Perfect Life’ then you will love ‘Very Nearly Normal’

This novel follows the story of 28 year old Effie, who is still living with her parents, has a tragic love life, and has given up on her dreams to become a published writer. Effie’s so called best friend Kate appears to be living it up in a glamorous flat, with a successful career and is newly engaged whereas Effie lives under a black cloud. Her self-esteem and self-belief is drastically low and she doesn’t feel good enough and as a result she turns to the bottle to drown her sorrows.

Following a failed date Effie, meets Theo who encourages Effie to live out of her comfort zone. They write a to do list together and before you know it you are laughing and crying as we follow Effie’s on a journey of self discovery.

Overall, a very relatable and feel-good story. It is so easy to think everyone is doing better than us and that we should have reached the same goal posts but this story shows us how we all have our time to shine and that good things come to us all.

Categories
Non Fiction Self help

Confidence Lost/Confidence Found, Kate McGuinness

Unlike some self-help books Confidence Lost/Confidence Found is extremely useful. This book goes above and beyond offering more than your standard clichés and instead gives practical tips and offers the science behind them.

Having gone from high flying lawyer to questioning her self-worth, Kate reflects on her own experiences to help others. I for one have suffered from lost confidence and felt I could fully relate to Kate and found her tips useful and easy to implement into everyday life. This book focuses on small steps, which may seem trivial, yet they are less daunting and therefore much easier to achieve, meaning the results of these small changes are in fact life changing.


Not only did I love the summaries at the end of each chapter meaning that upon finishing the book I could easily revise the different sections but also throughout the book you are signposted to further resources. This is fantastic for those who want to learn or work more on specific aspect which is discussed throughout the book.

All in all, Confidence Lost/Confidence Found is a very empowering read and I believe we can all take something from this book.