Member Reviews

Hope Nicely's Lessons for Life
by Caroline Day

A very interesting read. I wasn’t sure how to review this book. It took me a little while to get into the style of Hope Nicely as it’s about the life a young woman with a ‘muddled brain’ due to her mother drinking during pregnancy. The book starts as Hope joins a writing class to understand her life as an abandoned baby in a box to the young woman she has become with the help of her loving adopted mum and her journey as the girl with a muddled brain and the challenges she overcomes having no friends and journey to understand herself by writing a biography about herself.

A beautiful book lovely characters sadness ,humour and an ultimate overwhelming feel good story as it all unfolds not always as you expect. I wanted to give Hope a great big hug

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I must firstly apologise for the amount of time it has taken me to provide a review of this book, my health was rather bad for quite some time, something that had me in hospital on numerous occasions and simply didnt leave me with the time I once had to do what I love most.

Unfortunately that does mean I have missed the archive date for many of these books, so It would feel unjust throwing any review together without being able to pay attention to each novel properly.

However, I am now back to reading as before and look forward to sharing my honest reviews as always going forward. I thank you f0r the patience and understanding throughout x

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I received an advanced reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

This is a story that will stay with me for many reasons, and explores foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and the long lasting effects and damage that it can cause. The main character, Hope, is an adopted girl with learning difficulties (caused by FAS) and embarks on a search for her birth mother so that she can fill in the missing blanks as to why her birth mother abandoned her as a baby, to enable her to write her own memoir. Her adoptive mother Jenny has instilled certain regimes and guidelines to help Hope navigate in life but when her mum falls ill she struggles with the massive upheaval in her very structured life.

Hope is such a unique, beautiful character and is just such a beautiful soul, and as a mother myself I felt so protective towards her and wanted to protect her from the outside world, but her infectious personality is one that should touch everybody's heart.

There were laugh out loud moments, heart felt moments, tears and joy, and the author has written it beautifully.

Thank you so much for providing me with the arc to this wonderful book.

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such a beautifully written book , I loved this so much. Hope Nicely’s Lessons For Life is a delightful read that I am so glad I got to read, this will stay with me for so long. It’s so hope filled and left me feeling the same, just beautiful

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

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Totally Blew me away – wow! Powerful, heart-warming, emotional, empathic. I laughed and cried.

Hope Nicely is born with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, which means that she has a developmental disorder which makes everyday life a little bit harder for her – very much on the rainbow spectrum of autism. Hope is given a scholarship to join a writing group, to help her write her autobiography, hoping that this will reach her biological Mother and she will be able to tell her why she abandoned her in a cardboard box when she was just a few hours old.

This is a heart-warming read, full of innocence. The story is a book full of the friendships she builds with her fellow students and the love that develops between them.

It’s also full of funny one-liners, due to Hope’s innocence, which is just beautiful. The story is of raw love between Hope and her Mum – Jenny. Jenny is everything to Hope and the one person, who guides and understand her unconditionally.

I cannot recommend this book enough. Caroline Day as written an amazing story of a beautiful life-life character, with a ‘special drop of light’

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in return of an honest, unbiased review.

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Oh I do so love Hope Nicely. What a wonderful portrayal of someone whose quest for knowledge and inclusion is enabling her to defy the odds.

Caroline Day has created a wonderful character in Hope. Born with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome and enduring years of torment and being ‘different’, Hope is very much trying to find her place in the world and, well, to simply fit in. Without giving any spoilers away, Hope’s quest for some sort of acceptance and acknowledgement is a real driving force.

The way that Day brings Hope’s character to life with such detail, humour, insight and humanity amazes me. She writes with such compassion but with utter simplicity so fitting for Hope. I was rooting for Hope from the onset! I already know that if I was allowed to enter the story, I would be a fierce champion of Hope, her mum and her brilliant writing club companions.

I really hope that you love this book and Hope, as much as I did. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to be an early reader and will most certainly be recommending this book to anyone who chooses not to ignore me!

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Agents and publishers talk about finding a book with a strong voice so they must have leapt at the chance to represent this one. Although, it is perhaps easier to ‘find the voice’ in a first person narrative, that doesn’t make Hope’s voice any less valid. After all, that’s kind of what the story is about. Finding your voice, speaking your truth, and being your authentic self.

As a writer I loved that the book was structured as Hope’s autobiography and also that the chapters focused on a different aspect of writing a book. It was almost like a mini writing exercise in itself.

The cast of characters are bought vividly to life through Hope’s narrative, with their flaws and strengths on clear display through her literal responses to them, and their responses to her, which aren’t always as positive as I’m sure the readers will be.

Our narrator has FASD (Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder) and autism. Although I read a printed ARC I have listened to the sample of the audiobook narrated by Zoe Croft and based on that I’d happily recommend either option. Hope’s voice leaps from the page but Zoe also helps bring her to life.

There are some serious topics considered in the book with her adopted mother Jenny’s illness and her search for her birth mother. And I’m not going to say you won’t need tissues to hand. You will likely laugh and cry, and feel a hundred other emotions.

Do also check out the introduction to Hope’s Golden Rules - I think a certain government might - flip a pancake - learn something from Hope.

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I struggled to get into this at first but glad i kept going. A funny, heartwarming, feel good book. I didn't know about FASD, but was interesting to read about it and learn about it throughout the book, the author definitelty showed to have knowledge about the condition. Hope and Jenny were such lovely characters and I felt connected to them.

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This is a difficult book for me to review.
I liked the premise, and could definitely see hints of Eleanor Oliphant, but for me the execution didn't match up.
Foetal Alcohol Syndrome is a sensitive subject, and I definitely appreciated the strength of the author to tackle this topic, but I struggled to connect with Hope and found reading her thoughts pretty tiring. I understand this will be the aim of the author, but I would have preferred another POV to help balance it.

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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me this ARC!

I really enjoyed this, the writing in it was fabulous! The plot was really good, it was uplifting also! Such a good read overall

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We meet Hope who wants to write her memoir so attends night classes. Hope also has a condition (FASD), which makes life more challenging for Hope. This is such a neat heartwarming feel good story. Really enjoyed it.

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This was a bit of an odd book for me.

On one hand, learning about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder which is what Hope Nicely, the main character has, was really interesting. It isn't something I've heard about before so I did a lot of reading online about it. It's a disorder that is rarely talked about and I don't believe there are many other fiction books featuring this condition.

As I started the book I did a bit of research into the author and her motivations for creating such a character and actually she includes a nice note at the end which does explain a lot of the research she did and working with FASD awareness and sensitivity readers to ensure her character was accurate which I think is so important.

But I didn't really enjoy the book, which was such a disappointment to me as I really thought I would. A large part of the book is set in a writer's group with a cast of characters who unfortunately I found to be quite flat and hard to remember.

It got a bit more interesting around 30% in so I decided to stick with it but at no point did I feel a real urge to pick it up nor an emotional connection with the book and characters. My favourite character was Connor Flynn who has Asperger's, although there was no mention from the author of any research she had done into Asperger's and now I'm wondering why she chose to write that character at all and actually maybe he was a bit stereotypical!

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I found this book a comforting and refreshing read. The story is about Hope Nicely, a 25 years old who was affected by her birth mother drinking during pregnancy. This leaves Hope living on the spectrum and having foetal alcohol syndrome. Hope decides she wants to contact her birth mother to find out why she drank and decides to do so by writing a book about herself, which she hopes her birth mother will see. So she joins a local writing class to be able to tell her story.

The book is written in the first person with Hope telling the story. I liked the way this was written, it felt as though you were listening to Hopes’s thoughts and conversation in real time. It was a lovely story, told with humour and honesty, giving you a story full of heart and soul.

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I will update the review with a link to our blog closer to publication date.
I'd like to thank the publisher and netgalley for providing me with an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

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Hope is one of those characters who grabs your attention straight away and keeps it for the entire book. Told from Hope's perspective, we get to see the impact that Foetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder (FASD) has had on her, and her ability to understand the world. She has decided to write a book about her life and experience of FASD in the hope of finding her birth mum and understanding why she drank so much and gave up her daughter, and joins a writing group to help her with this. When her adoptive mum falls ill and has to stay in hospital, it is this group who rally round to look after Hope and help her cope with life on her own. It was a really heartwarming story, that was easy to read and kept you turning the page to find out what was going to happen next.

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-DNF-

Struggled to associate with the main character.
I really wanted to like this book, but I just couldn’t get into the storyline properly unfortunately

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A book full of hope, friendship and acceptance. Hope needs to find her birth mother and embarks on a journey of self discovery. Gorgeous novel.

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This was a dnf for me and that is very rare but I found the single narrator too one dimensional. I’ve read lots of others books with the one narrator but this one failed to engage me at all.

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My Thoughts: well, this book was an absolute joy to read, it made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me cringe and it made me want to hold Hope right and never let her go.

When it comes to the writing style and Hopes voice although I totally understood why it was written the way it was, it did take a lot of getting used to, but once I was there it made the story feel more real and genuine.

The story deals with a lot of hard hitting topics, and there were times when I thought I’d have to put it down, but I kept on going and I am SO GLAD I did,

How do you deal with the worst days of your life when you take things literally and struggle to process your emotions in the way that everyone else is telling you too? – stick with Hope and she will show you how.

This has to be one of my favourite reads of the year and gave me serious Eleanor Oliphant vibes and I will be recommending it to anyone possible.

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Hope Nicely was abandoned by her birth mother, and grows up with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. This makes her see things differently to most people and she struggles to fit in with society. In a bid to find her mother, Hope decides to write her autobiography, and joins a writing group. While things don’t exactly run smoothly, Hope begins to find new friends and learns new ways to cope with everything that life throws at her.

I loved Hope Nicely’s Lessons for Life. It made me laugh and cry and at times really think about how we treat people. Hope’s interactions with the other members of the writing group, especially Ludovic, is brilliant. Their differing reactions to her behaviour is so believable and real, which helps the whole story flow.

Such an enjoyable read.

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