Hanna really is at “Square One” having ended things with Joe, leaving her life in London behind to move in with her dad and having to start all over again while everyone else seems to have “The Stuff” sorted in their 30s.
Square One really struck a chord with me as someone who moved back in with their parents, battled through a breakup while desperately trying to kick-start my career while my friends were getting engaged and moving on with their lives.
Charming, relatable, heartfelt and funny, Square One is a great read and
I’m sure a lot of others can relate to comparing your life to others around you, having to start again and find your way.
I loved how this book explored the father-daughter relationship, friendships and the non-traditional family dynamic.
Hanna is on a journey – healing after the breakdown of a long-term stifled relationship, trying to find her way again, having some sort of relationship with her parents especially her dad and trying to get her stuff together!
We’ve all been there comparing our lives with our friends and exes while scrolling through perfect feeds on social media.
There’s lots of funny moments in this book and really warm banter with Hanna and her dad and Hanna and her friends.
By the end of this book, I was really rooting for Hanna to succeed and I think you will too.

Thanks for the advance copy if this book unfortunately it did not .meet my expectations for an enjoyable read. I found Hanna, the main character very unlikeable. She had split with her boyfriend & moved back to Oxford with her father. The story reveals her constant whinging about her father's bad habits, his new girlfriend her ex boyfriends lack of commitment even her new job. I found the story depressing and long winded and can only think perhaps I am to old & experienced in life, and it might be more suited for a younger person going through the turmoil of relationships and becoming a mature adult.

I really enjoyed Hanna and her slightly odd, often disgusting Father!
Hanna is feeling left behind by her friends who are all finding commitment, marriage, mortgages and babies whilst she is back at home with her dad and occasionally his new love interest and all the horrors that brings as an adult living with a parent!
The story follows Hanna finding her feet with a new job, new friends and a possible new love interest all whilst she still stalks her ex only to find he has very much moved on from her.
Thoroughly enjoyable with a host of characters who will garner empathy, disgust and squirming cringing as you get to know them!

Hannah really was back at square one, back living with her father Iain with all his disgusting habits.
Hannah had had enough of Joe, coming second to his band and his mates it was time for Hannah to leave London and her life with Joe and move back in with Iain in his small Oxford apartment.
Life with Iain was far from idea, he loved to cook but his hygiene and habits left a lot to be desired and to top it all he had discovered Tinder and was doing unspeakable things (in Hannah's mind) with a lady called Mary.
A hook up with an old school friend, Tom Moss rattled Hannah's ovaries but would it lead anywhere ? her old friend Shazia was happily married and even her best friend Dom was now happily in love and couldn't now be her stand by "plus one".
Hannah didn't want Joe but she was lonely and couldn't help staling him on social media.......bad idea.
This story follows Hannah's journey to find herself, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, the argument with Iain was classic. At times I didn't like Hannah, there were periods of "poor little me" but she fights her way through.
This is the first book that I have read by Nell Frizzel, very enjoyable.
I received a free copy of this book from Net Gallery and my review is voluntary

Hana finds herself recently single, thirty, and living back with her Dad who has just discovered Tinder. We follow her as she overcomes the everyday challenges of trying to move on with her life, whilst working out what it is she really wants from life.

I really enjoyed the funny accuracy of detailed episodes of Hana’s life which we can all relate to. Especially her awkward first day in a new job when she must come across totally competent, despite having no idea what she’s doing, and IT support have failed to provide even a keyboard.

One problem I did have with the book was that I didn’t always warm to Hana. She was a bit like the friend who spends the evening whinging to you about how much her life sucks, leaving you feeling completely drained by the time you step through your front door. I think it stems from the fact her problems are pretty mundane e.g. her ex moving on, her Dad is involved in a new relationship. Sometimes I wanted to shake her by the shoulders and tell her to get a grip. But perhaps that’s also a positive, the book made me engage with Hana and find out what happens to her.

I would recommend Square One to readers who liked Lucky Cow and Olive for their accurate portrayal of navigating real life as a thirty something in the modern day.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I received an ARC of this via Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I was delighted to receive this copy as a big fan of “The Panic Years”.

Charming, relatable, heartfelt and funny, Square One struck a chord with me as someone who moved back in with a parent after a significant life change (us even having the same name was weird) and has felt the pressure to be in a certain spot in their life by 30, comparing my life to my peers on Instagram.
I’m sure a lot of others can relate to this too.

Would happily read more by Nell, any day of the week.

The mistake here was reading it after reading Mhairi McFarlane. It just fell short of the lightheartedness I was used to and felt a little bleak and bitter, though I thought it was well-written. I think the tone wasn’t quite as I’d hoped for and probably I’d have liked it more at a different time.

Funny, emotional and poignant is Square One by Nell Frizzell.

After her long-term relationship ends, Hanna finds herself forced to move back in with her Dad, Ian in Oxford (from London). She sleeps in his spare room, in his bachelor flat, navigating where she is, who she is and what she wants. It's deeply relatable, especially as someone who is approaching their 30s.

Hanna, in herself, grows as the book goes on. Her outlook, her attitude and how she feels about things changed and I found myself learning a lot along the way too. It's hard not to root for Hanna, and while at times I worried I was disconnecting with her, Nell did manage to scoop me back up. It's a very character-driven story, which I love, and this was no different. The ending is also so satisfying, showing how Hanna still has things to do but is in a much better place than she was at the beginning.

Julie was a standout character for me, mainly because I saw some similarities to my own Mum, my friends' Mum's and TV ones, that it made me chuckle whenever she said anything.

The book does a really good job at exploring all kinds of relationships, not just love-interest relationships, and I especially loved her and her Dad as I don't feel this is often explored.

It's a short, but enjoyable read, and one I'd recommend to anyone who feels they should have it all together but doesn't.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for the ARC, "Rock Tunnel, forever"

I have mixed feelings about this book. It is written in a very different style to what I was expecting and used to. It's very prose heavy, with a lot of description and analogy, which means it isn't quite the easy, flowing read I was expecting.

However, being in my early 30s, I did relate to some of the main character's thoughts and feelings about the pressures and expectations that come with reaching and hurting towards turning 30, which is what drew me to the book in the first place.

An advance reading copy of this book was sent to me in exchange for a frank review.

I enjoyed reading this book. All the characters are described really well so that you can almost picture them. I liked the fact that our main subject grew as the story went on, and there were one or two life lessons thrown in. A lovely story. Thanks.

#NetGalley #SquareOne

I didn't feel like this did anything massively original - it's along the lines of Ghosts by Dolly Alderton or Olive by Emma Gannon, very much of the moment - but it was well-written and had a clear, distinctive voice. Easy and enjoyable.

After her long-term relationship ends with commitment-phobe boyfriend Joe, Hanna is forced to move from London back to Oxford to stay with her Dad, Iain in the spare room of his bachelor flat. Unfortunately for Hanna, Iain has discovered the Tinder dating app and seems to have a thriving love life, which rather rubs salt into her wounds. With no job and all of her possessions packed into the spare room things look bleak. Is this back to square one for Hanna at 30 or a chance to find out who she is all over again? A fun, light read. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

I enjoyed this it was a fun read and any book that mentions Melvyn Bragg and Radio 4 is a winner in my eyes.
Hanna was inherently relatable and good fun, it felt like Hanna was echoing me at times. Loved it. Such a great book.

Brilliant fiction debut. It was a quick and fun read with very well written and relatable characters. highly recommend 4/5

If you enjoyed the likes of ‘Ghosts’ and ‘Olive’, you’ll like this book too.

It captures the fear and worry of the unknown when your life takes you on a path that doesn’t quite fit with societies expectations.

A fun read that makes you realise, no one has a clue what they’re doing!

Everyone moves at different paces, but Hanna's life is in reverse. With the pressure to keep up and her dad's insufferable musings on Tinder, will she be able to figure out what she really wants. This book was a thrilling ride from the beginning. The author’s style places the reader in the book in each scene for an entertaining journey.

This book was fine. First off, this is not a romcom (as I originally expected), but simply a book about a woman who feels like a failure because she is single and living with her dad at 30, and about how she may (or may not) come to terms with this. I was interested in this story because as someone single, in her late twenties and living in a shoebox in London, I thought I might be able to relate to the main character Hanna. However, even though Hanna is not entirely unlikeable, I just don't share her overly bleak outlook on life, and thus struggled to sympathise with her. Overall, however, the story is easy to read, there are comedic elements to it (Hanna and her family can be quite witty) and I don't regret reading it.

After splitting with her long term partner, Hanna finds herself back in her hometown and living with her dad. Her parents have separated and her dad has recently joined Tinder which leads to a new kind of relationship as she is in denial about her father having his own life. I thought this was a fun and enjoyable read and something a lot of people will relate to.

So...I didn't finish this book - I gave it a fair go and read over a third of it, and flicked through to see if it would improve for me.

So why didn't I like it? The main character is just....awful, but not in a fun 'this is a horrible person, let's enjoy the ride of her being horrible' way, but in a "how am I supposed to relate to this woman?" way. I just really don't care enough about her to read more. I didn't connect with the main character, she was very 2D and just seemed like a horrible person who doesn't think *she's* horrible but everyone else is...she has no current friends from the story so far and calls hobbies and people who have hobbies losers. I just could not relate to this woman in the slightest....but from other reviews it seems I am in the minority. Maybe it is a nationality/class thing? The book is VERY southern England and quite middle class.

This is very much a character driven story, so if you vibe with it from the get go, you'll probably really like the slice of life journey...but if you don't vibe maybe wait for Frizzell's next novel - the prose is good, and very readable (but littered with cringeworthy moments from Hanna's internal monologue).

An easy, fun and relatable read that made me feel less alone when reading. Highly recommend for something you can fly through but will still leave an impact and make you want to know more. Will definitely be purchasing a hard copy!