What an awful person Tori appears to be at first, a product of the social media generation, as are most of her friends.

But it ended up that she was wiser than any of us.
I went from really disliking her, to cheering her on, wanting her to do the right thing (no spoilers here!)
Although I’m a lot older than Tori, I can completely identify with a lot in this book - IS a bird in the hand worth two in the bush?
So, well done, Ms Bourne, you’ve written a novel of our strange, social media obsessed days, and it’s a good one.

I've loved all of Holly Bourne's Young Adult novels so I was so excited to read her first foray into adult fiction. How Do You Like Me Now is a Bridget Jones-eqsue tale for the internet age where how many likes you get on Instagram and followers you have on Twitter dictates your level of success in life.
Following the love-to-hate Tori on a voyage through her early thirties, we watch her as she falls into a pit of confusion and insecurity about, well, everything. All of her friends are married and having babies yet she can't even get her long term boyfriend Tom to touch her as much as he touches their pet, Cat. As a successful author who has made her career from pretending to know what the hell is going on, Tori finds that actually maybe she hasn't got a bloody clue and everyone is just muddling their way through life as best they can. With a sharp, witty plot and a whole host of hilarious characters, How Do You Like Me Know is set to be a BIG THING. I devoured it in 24 hours and I can only hope that Holly will revisit the character of Tori again one day. I loved it!

I really didn’t know what to expect when I started reading this, I thought ok, this is a story of a devastating loss of a child and how the main character overcomes her grief.’ But, what I got was so much more.
Maggie lost everything and started her new life in a new place just to exist not expecting anything from anyone. After a few years, she gains the respect of people who know nothing of her past and due to a massive media frenzy which surrounds a new friend, her past comes to the forefront. This is how she survives her unimaginable loss and at the same time shares her ability of understanding other people’s feelings and acceptance of who she is now and gradually letting family, her ex and friends from the past back into her life. A thought provoking, emotional journey of loss and forgiveness.
One negative; I found in the beginning, the descriptions were too long winded and at times repetitive and I kept losing interest, but I’m so glad I stuck with it. I look forward to reading more of this author’s work.

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.

I am a thirty something. I struggle with wrinkles, grey hair and not knowing if I'm a success or not. So on some level, this book speaks to me. But on another level, I want to shake Tori and all she stands for. For the self harm, the eating disorder, the destructive relationship cycle, the reliance on social media for validation. How, as a generation, have we come to see this as being alright? Why are some of these things never addressed and just hinted at in the book? I understand that the whole point of this tale was for her to regain her life, but she is hardly a loveable character. A somewhat disconcerting read.

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.

I enjoyed this book, it was an easy read. I would recommend it for holiday reading or when you want something simple to relax with.

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.

*Thanks to the publisher and to Netgalley for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review!*

Holly Bourne is definitely up there in my top three writers, so I was absolutely chuffed when I was approved for the ARC of her upcoming adult debut!

I must admit I was a bit hesistant going into this on whether I would like it or not, seen as I don’t usually read a lot of adult. But it was completely unnecessary because How Do You Like Me Now?, like every other of her books, was FANTASTIC.

I only finished It Only Happens in the Movies recently but I was already missing Bourne’s laugh-out-loud writing style terribly. This book was everything – I was hooked from page one. The writing was of course funny and sharp and so bloody real. The great thing about Bourne as a writer – whether it be YA or Adult – is that she manages to express everything to realistically and not sugarcoat things just for the sake of it. Her characters are always so true and genuine and honest and it’s something I love about her as a writer.

At times it reminded me of Bridget Jones, which is the best thing ever because I adore Bridget Jones just like any other sane person. This book is so brilliant and I love the various types of media woven throughout. How we get a look into Tori’s personal life with her texts and Facebook updates, as well as the posts she makes to the numerous fans of her memoir.

I just wish this didn’t end so quickly. I loved this book so much, and I’m so proud of Bourne for the transition from YA to Adult. And I must admit the end did scream out for a sequel 😉

I JUST WANT MORE TORI!

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