You know, I didn’t know what I was going to end up making of How Do You Like Me Now. I’ve heard of Holly Bourne, obviously, because I do not live under a rock and her Am I Normal Yet has been on my TBR forever. I read The Manifesto on How To Be Interesting and honestly, it and I didn't click like I thought we might and yet, when I heard she was branching out into adult fiction I was intrigued.
How Do You Like Me Now is getting a lot of hype, and lots of positive feedback and I looked into it a little bit and thought it sounded like something I’d be interested in and so I decided that actually yes – this was a bandwagon I wanted to be on, please, and I gave it a go. I am a publicists dream, I swear: I have such bad bookish FOMO.

I am exceptionally glad that I do though, because I would have been so sad to have missed this one.
Here’s the thing: this book feels like it could have been written for me. For me; about me. I mean actually. I read the blurb and I imagined my own life at the start of my 30’s and wow.
Hang on a little minute, let me do a little copy-paste of the blurb.
Turning thirty is like playing musical chairs. The music stops, and everyone just marries whoever they happen to be sitting on.’ Who the f*ck is Tori Bailey?There’s no doubt that Tori is winning the game of life. A straight-talking, bestselling author, she’s inspired millions of women around the world with her self-help memoir. And she has the perfect relationship to boot.But Tori Bailey has been living a lie.Her long-term boyfriend won’t even talk about marriage, but everyone around her is getting engaged and having babies. And when her best friend Dee – her plus one, the only person who understands the madness – falls in love, suddenly Tori’s in terrifying danger of being left behind.When the world tells you to be one thing and turning thirty brings with it a loud ticking clock, it takes courage to walk your own path.It’s time for Tori to practice what she’s preached, but the question is: is she brave enough?The debut adult novel by bestselling author Holly Bourne is a blisteringly funny, honest and moving exploration of love, friendship and navigating the emotional rollercoaster of your thirties.


Wow. I mean, this bit:
Her long-term boyfriend won’t even talk about marriage, but everyone around her is getting engaged and having babies. And when her best friend Dee – her plus one, the only person who understands the madness – falls in love, suddenly Tori’s in terrifying danger of being left behind.When the world tells you to be one thing and turning thirty brings with it a loud ticking clock, it takes courage to walk your own path.
That was my life, guys, until a few years ago: I was in this relationship with this guy that I had invested years of my life in, who kept professing to love me, who wouldn’t talk commitment but who still dangled the carrot of marriage and babies so that I kept on holding on, not wanting to leave because I believed he did love me really and because I had put so much into the whole thing and I didn’t want to be the girl that failed at love whilst everyone else succeeded around me (and wow was everyone else succeeding) but never ever really knowing quite where I stood, or, by the end, what I even wanted or who I was. It was a strange time, with lots of intense feelings and a constant knot in my chest.

So much of what Holly Bourne writes in this book, about Tori and Tom, about the way Tori feels, her issues with food, struck a chord with me, hit me right in the messed up relationship feels. They even have a cat, which she sometimes thinks he loves more than he loves her. OH HELLO. The thing about situations like this one is that you kind of don’t realise how much you’re kidding yourself it’s all ok until you can look back at it from the marvellous vantage point of actually being ok.

Seriously: that whole wanting it so badly because you were being teased by it – because it was being offered and taken away and hinted at but always later later later, and because you could see everybody else getting it and because somehow you thought that was what your life was supposed to look like, whilst at the same time having this niggling feeling that you might be better of out of it that you’re worth more than this, it’s the worst and this book gets that, it totally lands smack bang in the middle of those feelings in a brutally honest way and I LOVE it.

And whilst I want this to be a book review and not a dissection of my previous life, I need to mention the parallels to make the point: this book made me feel like there was somebody out there who got it, who got me.

It hit a nerve, it hit all the nerves and which sort of makes it hard to say that I enjoyed it from start to finish because let’s be real here: it’s hard to relax into a story that has you feeling like you’re under a microscope – but I am so glad that I read it and I feel so much better for it; I suspect I won’t be the only one who comes way from it feeling this way either which makes me think that perhaps this book is one that needed to be written. It felt authentic – Tori and Tom’s relationship, the way she reacted to it, the getting drunk, the lashing out, the being filled with regret after the lashing out, the not being able to see past being in this relationship, the fear that if she can’t make this work she’ll never make anything work and will just be alone, the subtle ways in which Tom manipulated her emotions, it felt authentic.

Reading this book felt like a catharsis.

If other people come away from it feeling like I did – which is to say kind of validated and reassured that I was not the crazy needy person I was made to feel like I was at the time (oh hi there subtle gaslighting wow) – then that is a good and excellent thing. I feel better for reading this book. I feel better about what happened then and I feel better about who I am now and I don’t know, is that a weird thing to take away from a work of fiction? Perhaps it is, but there you have it: I do feel better. I think most people will find something to relate to here, honestly: if you’re a woman that is single or dating or in a long-term relationship, if you have children or want children or don’t want children, there’s something here for you and the way the book tackles friendships made me feel all the things.
There’s also a really excellent thread running through the book about social media and the impact it has on our mental state and again: YES.

It perfectly highlighted how toxic social media can be – how it can shape our perceptions of ourselves and everybody around us and how often those perceptions are skewed. (I cannot even tell you how much better I felt after deactivating my Facebook account last year) and I really liked how that played out and how it was worked into the story. Clever plot device is clever.

I’ve seen it compared to Bridget Jones this book and you know, I get it; I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it enjoyed something close to that level of success. In the way people related to Bridget Jones in the late 1990s (and I loved her, but I was in high school when I first read the book, and 18 when the film came out which meant I could love her for her without having to reflect on what her story said about my own life) I defy anybody in their early 30’s not to see something of themselves in Tori now - although she’s not as likeable as Bridget. That kind of makes her more real though, the way she’s a but of a dick. You root for her because she’s a bit of a dick. She’s human and so are you.

I devoured this book, I devoured it and I laughed and I loved it and I finished wondering what was going to happen next for Tori. I’m okay now, I’m not with that guy anymore and I’ve moved on. I’m settled and happy and I have a great guy in my life and I’m finding a way to leave all those insecurities behind me; I hope that she is too.

How Do You Like Me Now is out in June. You can pre-order a copy though and I totally think you should.

I loved this book but can appreciate that it wouldn't be suitable to all audiences, especially the 40+ crowd. But it's perfection for every girl in the western world who is in her 20's & 30's
I really identified with the main protagonist, as a girl in the time of life when everything was supposed to be sorted but who doesn’t have everything sorted the way she thought she would! Then looks around and EVERYONE else around her seems to have their lives neatly wrapped up in a pretty little bow. Tori is funny, smart, beautiful and successful but finds herself stuck in a relationship with a man who doesn't want to have sex with her and finding her career stagnating. That being said, at times she was so self obsessed it was annoying.
You can really feel the pain of desperately trying to make your life look fun and inspirational on social media but the hollowness when you look at it in the light of day.
The language is pretty ripe, and that doesn't bother me at all, but I think some people may have a issue with it, but it probably suits the time more than anything.
The style of the book is between adult fiction and YA, you can tell that the author has written YA novels previously.
Fun read that you can wizz through and enjoy.

There were some formatting issues with this copy that did make reading this book a little difficult. I didn't much care for Tori, really. She is incredibly selfish, and I don't feel like she truly cares about her friends and their needs. EG: the baby shower. I usually adore Holly's books, but this wasn't for me.

I requested this ARC because I love Holly Bourne and how she writes. She usually strikes a nerve with every single book I read and this wasn’t the exception. I am 32 years old like Tori and I don’t know exactly what it is that I want to do with my life. And I’m afraid, just like her, that it may be too late and that I have to settle with whatever or whoever stumbles upon my way because then I’ll be an old lady and nobody will want me anymore.

I, too, worry about new little wrinkles on my forehead and under my eyes. I, too, worry that my body is getting old to have children and the pressure I feel seeing people younger than me or my age already with big families and so very much in love, is barely tolerable. I, too, am a strong woman with principles like I defend with whatever I can but I have weaknesses and insecurities that more often than not make me question my whole existence.

Tori is a very relatable character. She lies to herself and to the world to maintain an image she wants to portrait and that it’s not the person she is. It takes millions of selfies for her to get the right one to share in which she looks naturally beautiful but that it needed the right light, angle, filter and natural make up to achieve. She has written a self-help book about what a mess it is being in your 20s and now that she is in her 30s, the mess is still there, only mutated. But Tori can’t afford to disappoint her fans telling them that she isn’t happy in her long term relationship, that she starves herself to look the right kind of thin, that she doesn’t have any idea about her next book, that she sees her friends getting married and having children and that she secretly wants it for herself even if, at first, she wasn’t so sure.

I may not agree with Tori's decisions or how she acts but I can see why she did what she did. But being 32 is not decrepit old, like Tori seems to think. We are not falling apart, we are not nearly expired. There's no schedule. No deadline. No pressure. Even if the world seems to expect so much from us and it's overwhelming. Don't get me started on panic attacks. Freaking out is part of the process, I suppose. Tori could be selfish, very insecure and egocentric. Always pursuing the idea of happiness she had in her mind. Tori made lots of mistakes and I often wanted to slap her (with love) to wake her up from the fantasy she was living. She could be pretty annoying but we all are, right? That’s not her flaw; it’s one of our many endearing qualities. Right?

I am a fan of YA book even if I’m very much not a young adult anymore. I do feel still pretty young, though. But I’m also always happy to read books about characters my age, someone I can really relate to. Life is hard and after 30 it doesn’t magically fix itself and let you live the life you’ve always dreamt. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that and it takes you by surprise with twists and tons of obstacles be them money, love, anxiety, or the sweet sweet fear of not being able to achieve what we were hoping to achieve before we were too old. One day you’ll wake up and think, yes, I’m old, and no, I’m not doing what I thought I’d be doing. And your brain will short-circuit for a bit. Again, this is part of the process of surpassing your 30s.

Long story short, this is a great book for everyone, not only for women in their 30s like myself. I think it can help giving you an insight of the future if you are younger, or giving you memories, bad or good, about your past if you are older. It’s for you either if you are living the dream or if you are struggling. It may help you understand more about what you do every day unconsciously and it may help you see things through a different light. I know it helped me. It gave me hope. I’m not late for anything; I’m just getting wherever I’m getting at my own pace and I don’t have to feel ashamed for not doing what everyone else thinks you’re supposed to be doing at my age. I will let myself be me. With love. With strength. With a big smile on my face.

This book is fantastically brilliant. It's a witty, unflinchingly honest, funny/sad mirror into adulting. It's that shock you get when you hit your 30s and you inevitably ask yourself, 'What the f*ck now?', in book form.

Honestly, whatever age you are, this book will speak to you. Whatever you're worried about in your life at the moment, this book will speak to you. Whatever you don't like about yourself, this book will speak to you. It will speak to you about all your fears, doubts, insecurities and bring up those hard questions you don't want to answer about your life.

But it does it in the form of the wonderfully likable Tori. Successful author with adoring fans, a long-term boyfriend, a lovely flat and all those things that make her life look good on the outside. The thousands of likes of her every social media post. The sold-out shows and TED talks. She's famous for her honesty, but she's afraid of being honest to herself. I loved the glimpse into Tori's true self, her often hilarious and harsh stream of consciousness narration, that says all those things you really want to say but isn't really societally acceptable to do so. I love that her happy ending is almost the opposite of what you would expect. "I'll have the surreal pain of knowing there's someone out there, under the same sky, who knows me better than any other human, yet I can't speak to him again." That quote is everything.

Personally, I liked her parts about parenthood and the divide between the have/have nots (children, that is). As a recent mum, it's hard not to be utterly consumed with your little person and everything you say/do revolves around them. But let me tell you, it's wonderful but not as wonderful as all those posts on 'The Bad Site' would have you believe. I struggled big time. I happily went back to work full time. I don't have the physical and mental strength to be just a mum. And I really, really salute those that do. This is from someone that knows were all the good soft play areas are, because it's the only thing keeping you sane.

The best part about this book is that it says what should be easy to say, but isn't sometimes: you don't have to want the same things as everyone else. And that's ok. But if you do, that's ok too. However your life is, even if it's not what you imagined, or not like every body else's, you haven't failed.

So thanks Holly, for your book. I'll be passing this on and recommending it to all my friends. You'll be giving a TED talk before you know it!

I was expecting something a bit spiky, but I didn't think it would be so sad as well. Not quite my thing, but interesting read.

I've loved Bourne's YA novels but this one really just didn't connect with me at all. I am sad that this is the case as I wanted to love it.

Absolutely awesome book!!! Can totally empathise with the main character and you can really feel the emotions throughout

This book made me laugh a lot. Overall it is a really good read. Tori knows her relationship with Tom is not what it used to be but has she the courage to do something about it? This book highlights that not everyone on social media tells the truth. People who post happy pics are not necessarily happy. That is something that is worth remembering.

When I started reading this book I was bored and didn't think I would finish it. It began as if it was same-old chick-lit about a crisis-stricken 30 something who just wants to marry her commitment-phobic boyfriend. But as the plot developed the book became so much more than that and has made me take stock of my relationship with social media, even though I am older than the author and the target audience. This is about living life through the lens of Instagram, Twitter or Facebook and how damaging that can be to our self-esteem and the life choices we make. I cringed at the mindset of characters who seek approval from faceless followers and friends and who measure popularity by clicks and likes before realising that I do that to an extent. Last week one of my son's schoolfriends died and her parents issued a statement about the dangers of knowingly curating your social media image while evaluating your life through the same prism and finding it wanting. This book carries the same message and by the end I found it surprisingly powerful.

It is an easy and pleasant enough read, but I could not relate at all with the main character - maybe it is down to personality traits - therefore I do not feel the book left me with great insights or hit any raw chords in me (as I see it did with many other readers). Having said that, it is a very contemporary story, well written and real. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the writing, the author did a great job of telling us the story, but I could not find the main character sympathetic at all and that limited greatly my perception of the whole book. I would still recommended it to friends.

Review posted to YouTube -- https://youtu.be/PRgqNXJFtns

Wow..this book!!! There is just so much about it that is just so real and so relevant. There were so many times I found myself thinking "YES!!!!" and I think I've highlighted half the book as it just spoke to me.

This is my first book from Holly Bourne (and the first adult book she's written) but it won't be the last. From the blurb I was expecting the standard chick lit or romcom type book that is all too common but this has so much more depth and realism to it than I ever could have anticipated.

As someone who is single and in their thirties I could really relate to so much of this story. How it seems that at a certain age everyone suddenly starts getting married and having kids and how this creates a barrier between you. How scary the thought of being on your own, or never having children can be and how sometimes it feels like you're losing at life if you're not blissfully happy, married and popping out babies. How you can feel judged and inadequate for putting your career first, or for those with kids, for not being the right type of mother.

I don't really like making comparisons but for me it had echoes of Bridget Jones Diary. This is a lot less of a romance but while Bridget was made to feel like there must be something wrong with her for being single by the smug marrieds, Tori is made to feel the same for not being a mother. Some of the things said to her are truly awful but I know from personal experience that it does happen. I could completely understand her jealousy and the feeling she had that she was trapped on the wrong side of a wall.

There are a number of other very relevant themes prevalent throughout this story. Our obsession with social media (if there's no pictures on insta it didn't happen) at the expense of enjoying the moment, the endless quest for validation from a bunch of strangers on the internet, how success is determined by how many likes or comments something gets. It really made me question my own obsession with twitter and instagram. Tori may have driven me nuts with how obsessed she was with presenting the best image of herself, the idea that she has the perfect life and all the answers but really she was just an exaggerated version of a lot of us.

I did love the strong feminist vibe that runs through this book. I may not have loved Tori but I loved how she challenged those claiming to be feminists. One of my favorite moments was when she was on a panel with a man claiming to be a feminist, she may have been drunk but she was hilarious and absolutely spot on.

Her relationship with Tom made for some difficult reading and I absolutely hated it and kept praying she would end it but as the book points out starting over in anything is a much more daunting prospect in your 30s than in your 20s. There's a definite feeling that you're locked into the decisions and the path you're on and just have to make the best of it.

If I had one minor qualm about this book and it is minor it's that I just couldn't understand Tom's behaviour. He was just so horrible and manipulative. I can't believe it was deliberate but I can't accept that he didn't know what he was doing.

I've probably made this sound like a really dark and intense book dealing with heavy and depressing issues but it's not like that at all. There was the odd heartbreaking moment but there were more than a few that were hilariously funny, many of which involved best friend Dee (and often some kind of celebratory event). My personal favorite was a baby shower and some discussion over landing strips, I'm saying no more except that Tori is truly gifted at saying exactly what I would be thinking.

Thank you Holly Bourne for creating such a wonderful book and if you're still reading after all of my waffling thank you too. If you can't tell I absolutely loved it and I hope it'll encourage women everywhere to maybe be a little less judgemental about how others choose to live their lives.

Holly Bourne is hugely popular in my school especially with younger teens, including boys, so when I saw she’d written her first adult novel I was really pleased to get an advance copy for review from netgalley. Sadly it just wasn’t my thing and I couldn’t finish it but there’s already a demand from kids at school to read it so I shal still be buying it, although I suspect the younger ones will quickly get bored with it and the boys won’t be too keen on the way the men in the novel are portrayed. Maybe one for young thirty somethings who can empathise more with the characters.

As a long term fan of Holly’s YA books, I was really excited to get my hands on this book - particularly since I am edging much closer to Tori’s age than the age of her teenage protagonists! I loved how relatable Tori’s problems were, and I loved the fact that I could recognise things she was talking about from my own experiences of London and publishing and so on. However, at times, the feminist agenda felt a bit forced, and I had a real issue with the amount of pressure surrounding Tori’s weight. Whilst I entirely understand that this is a problem with the society we live in and that the book is representative of that, and also of Tori’s disordered thinking, because we are in Tori’s head it grated as it felt like Holly was presenting this as a positive! I thought the book was funny and I enjoyed the fact that I could relate to Tori far more than I could with Holly’s other protagonists, but I had some real issues with a couple of elements that has knocked my rating down a little! Thank you for the read, I’m really glad I had the chance to review it!

Honest and relevant - a really interesting, real and true reflection on modern life with social media

A fabulous read. I was completely compelled with the story, the characters. I would love this to be the start in a series and would hapiily read what happened next for Tori. A laugh out loud heartbreaking tale, 100% recommend to all of my girlfriends!

This was such an amazing book I don’t know where to start. Tori, I love this character to bits. Relatable, flawed, funny and I felt that I was with her every step of the way. Definitely one of my top three books of the year!