This is an essential collection of essays that everyone should read from secondary school age onwards.

Lifestyle counselling from the female perspective on a range of topics affecting women in today's world. To my relief, this collection is not the hardline feminist ranting I was dreading from the subtitle and contributors chosen from their professional or social media profiles. Instead, this is a candid and generous sharing of valuable lessons-learned from personal experience. There are some trendy catchphrases to discover, such as “charm” (and “imposter”) syndromes, “himpathy” and “emotional labour”, as well as the topical and ubiquitous #Me too tag line - and the quality of the writing is variable, but on the whole, the psychobabble is kept to a minimum and there is genuine and thought-provoking insight.

I'm not a regular reader of The Pool, but I've definitely read some of their articles when they've been shared by friends. But the book appealed to me, as it's described as providing diverse views on a number of topics. And there were definitely things I enjoyed about the book, but I found it disappointing in one key way.

Starting with the good parts, the book does truly cover a broad range of topics, some of which were familiar to me, and some of which weren't. There are chapters which cover the specific experiences of their authors, and those which are more general discussions of particular topics. I enjoyed the variety that brought, and felt that it gave more depth to the book than if it had been only personal essays or only general discussions. It felt like a well-curated collection of articles, and if this is representative of the general type and quality of work published by The Pool, then that might be a website I should check out more often.

As the book is written by multiple contributors, the style and quality of the writing definitely varies across the book. There were some chapters that I particularly enjoyed, including Catharine Gray's chapter about grief, and Zoe Beaty's chapter about depression, whilst there were others which I found less enjoyable. But where most of the chapters are short, I found that I quickly moved onto the next chapter, and my overall impression of the standard of writing was good.

My main issue with the book was what felt to me like an overall lack of inclusivity and intersectionality. What I mean by this is that to me, it felt as though the 'standard' chapter was from the perspective of and aimed at straight, cis, middle-class, able-bodied white women. There were then specific chapters aimed at a more diverse audience, such as Vic Parsons' moving chapter about coming out to their father, or Yomi Adegoke's excellent chapter about the need for a more intersectional discussion of imposter syndrome. But these 'standard' chapters often failed to take an intersectional approach towards their topic. For example, an entire section on 'wombs' which, as far as I can remember (and I did go back to check), doesn't once mention that not everyone with a womb is a woman, and not every woman has a womb.

For chapters relating the specific experience of a specific person/specific people, I completely understand that they only represent one person's experience. However, many of the chapters cover topics more generally, and this is where I found the lack of inclusivity obvious. By seeming to separate chapters which focused on more intersectional issues or were from the perspective of an additionally marginalised person, this perpetuates the idea that a 'normal' woman is white, is straight, is cis, is able-bodied, and 'others' everyone who doesn't fit into those categories. For me, that's no longer good enough.

There were some truly interesting chapters in this book, and I certainly appreciated a lot of the personal essays and their insights into their authors' lives. But on the whole, I think this collection missed a chance to be truly inclusive, and for that reason, the book ultimately isn't one that I enjoyed overall.

Sadly, this is not my type of book at all. There's no real theme, beyond 'stories by women' and I found it very repetitive. I struggled through to 20% but realised I was skimming a lot, so I gave up. I'm sure this is someone's idea of a brilliant book, but it's not mine. Thank you for the opportunity to read it.


Receiving an ARC did not affect my review in any way.

Life Honestly by the pool a four-star read that will empower you. This read is subtitled “Strong Opinions from Smart women” and I couldn’t agree more, I hadn’t come across the pool before but I am sure I will be a regular visitor from now, each women has their own voice in this, some I agreed with and some I couldn’t abide, but that’s the genius behind this idea as each section means that you can pick it up and put it down when needed, and if you don’t like one you can drop it and move to the next each story comes with its own point of view. If I had to describe this book to someone I would say it would be the written version of watching ted talks, you learn something new with each view/read.

I went into reading Life Honestly never having heard of The Pool which is an online platform for women with a great deal of relevant and timely content. It’s contributors are a wide range of women from all walks of life and Life Honestly is a collection of short essays on a myriad of topics from the women of The Pool. I’m so glad I now know about this group and I found reading their book both educational and interesting.

I genuinely found every essay in Life Honestly relevant to today’s society and to me personally as a 26 year old woman. The essays are split into different broad topics like work, friendship, style and money. They are all short enough to feel snappy and to the point but also don’t feel rushed at all. The women writing for The Pool all lead such different lives and have variable experiences so there is a real wealth of accumulated knowledge between them. I could relate to all of their stories because they feel like the sort of women I know and encounter all the time. The essays on topics like gender politics and women’s health felt incredibly timely and intelligently written. I really enjoyed reading the ideas and opinions of these women and it gave me a great deal of food for thought. In addition, I have to say that even the topics which did not directly apply to me personally like parenting were still of interest to me. It was fascinating to read about the experiences of women who are in a stage of their lives that I could conceivably be in in a few years time. I always think the best way for women to gain true equality is for women to support each other completely and this book feels like a big step in the right direction.

All in all, I found Life Honestly to be a smart and coherent collection of honest and genuine stories from real women. I will definitely be keeping up with content that is created by The Pool as it feels like exactly the kind of information and opinions that I would like to inform the choices I make in my life.

Subtitled “Strong Opinions from Smart Women”, this collection of short articles from the website The Pool really did feel like a breath of fresh air.

I haven’t really encountered the website before but I’m delighted to be introduced to it now and have already had a good browse around and signed up for their emails.

The book is divided into various sections - e.g Gender Politics and Power, Work, Parenting, Body etc - each containing several articles of a few pages each on that general theme, from a wide range of contributors. Some I’d heard of (Lauren Laverne, Sali Hughes, Viv Groskop, Bryony Gordon), many I hadn’t. Hence it’s super accessible and easy to dip in and out of. Each piece is thought provoking and often inspiring. The only thing I would say is that there seems to be a bit of a lack of lesbian voices, with the Love, Sex and Relationships section, for instance, feeling very focused on heterosexual relationships..

A great book which I’m sure I will return to again and again.

Thank you for the recommendation of this. It was extremely powerful and I would stress that everyone should read this.

I loved this book so much! This covers all aspects of life and has some advice and anecdotes from many up and coming writers who you have heard of and others who you can discover and love. You can dip in and out of this book or binge. Would recommend this to all humans who want to know more about how we all live our lives honestly.

I haven't read all the essays included in "Life Honestly" because many of them don't apply to the life stage I'm currently at which is why I can't really relate to them at this point, but I look forward to picking this essay collection back up again when I reach my thirties and forties.

The essays I did read, especially on harassment, work culture, and feeling like I haven't hit all the mile stones I should have, all felt really relatable and well written. It felt good to read about other people's experience in the work place and how I wasn't overreacting but actually experienced very similar events and emotions as others in my position.

I like that this book offers a platform to a variety of women at different life stages, with different life experiences, and with different backgrounds. It shows the variability of problems women face throughout their lives but also how many of these problems are essentially the same for all women.

One essay, on the the necessity of having sex in order to have a functioning relationship, bugged me however. Because I'm asexual I mostly skipped over the essays on romantic relationships, because they aren't really applicable to me, but the headline really bothered me and reading the whole thing didn't make it better. Even the implication that sex is a necessary part of a healthy relationship is really off-putting to me and, in my opinion, devalues a lot of of very healthy long-term relationships.

Apart from this one essay, the articles were really interesting and dealt with important topics.

Life Honestly is a fantastic collection of essays on topics faced by women every day. These topics range from politics and relationships to motherhood and sex. Each essay is informative and well-written. I will be adding Live Honestly to my book collection.

The editor of the collection and co-founder of The Pool introduces the book by telling the reader about the role articles have played in her life.

“Over the years I have been indebted to the women bold enough to share their stories about everything from cripplingly heavy periods to massive career leaps. Laterly – and less seriously – I have learnt to say ‘and’ instead of ‘but’, delete every other ‘sorry’ from my emails and to say ‘yes’ unless I really mean ‘no’. In which case I just say ‘no’ and have done with it. When my eggs abruptly dried up, it was to other women’s stories I turned to get me through.”

Together with her co-founder she created The Pool to offer a safe space for women.

“A bull-shit free, truth-telling zone. This is how it is. The anti-Instagram, if you like, where the pain, stress, ridiculousness and joy of everyday life was not airbrushed away.”

The first section of Life Honestly was my favourite because it was about gender politics and power. One of the first essays in this section says that in order to make feminism work you need to share stories to raise awareness of inequality which is what this book does.

In this section of the book one woman talks about the story of a woman who was unable to close a joint bank account with an abusive partner without him being present, about the slut-shaming of Monica Lewinsky. My favourite essay of the section was one about why we don’t always take sexual offences seriously.

The woman who wrote the essay had to put up with a man masturbating next to her but didn’t report it because she felt like it wasn’t serious enough. In the essay she looks at the reasons why she came to that conclusion.

“Don’t make a fuss. Don’t whinge. There are far worse things that happen aren’t there? Don’t ever seem too highly strung, or emotional or ‘crazy’. Don’t appear like you ‘can’t take a laugh.’ The way women are publicly treated – shamed and embarrassed by uncaring self-righteous, self-centred men is diminished as ‘just a joke’. And so, when something happens, we…diminish its gravitas too.”

One of the other essays that captivated me was the one by the rape victim who described herself as a victim blamer also. She talks about her experience and then about a phrase she heard later which has stuck with her and is important to remember.

“Then a few years ago I heard the phrase ‘lets stop teaching women how not to get raped and start teaching men not to rape.”

Later essays in other sections talk about maternity leave and attitudes in the workplace to women of potential childbearing age, friendship and how to avoid toxic friends, and body image.

I found the article by the woman who chose not to lost weight for her wedding particularly refreshing.

This book is a must for anyone interested in feminism or simply looking to read more about issues facing contemporary women.

A collection of essays on a variety of subjects some more relevant to myself than others but all well written and engaging with some powerful passages. I think it would be a book to dip in and out of depending which section is most relevant to one at any particular time. The essays are short which is ideal for a book to pick up at any time, in fact I think it would be the best way to read it, or at least in the subject matter sections.

I had never heard of The Pool before and looking it up, I am now totally hooked on this no nonsense site for women's issues and I shall be letting my daughters know about it too.

It is a total 'must have' book for women of all ages and might offer an insight to a woman's take on things for men to read too

If I could thrust this into the hands of everyone I meet, I would.

A series of short, sweet, crisp essays which plant seeds. They're affirmative, rallying, tangible and highly relatable. There wasn't one story I didn't nod to - every page had something highlighted.

I absolutely sailed through this book. I'm a big fan of The Pool so I knew I was in safe hands, but this has been curated especially well and the stories bounce off each other perfectly. I think it was especially smart to have the essays lengths so short.

A brilliant, brilliant collection.

I raced through this book, although I had never heard of The Pool I have already visited the platform and would encourage all woman to do so. It is full of interesting, helpful and funny content which is instantly assessable.

This print version of the platform is divided into various topics such as work,, health and beauty self esteem, parenting and lots more besides. The inclusion of inspiring female writers ( a few I know and some new writers to me ) added to my enjoyment. These writers not only shared their advise and opinions but did so in a honest and entertaining way. I found it really refreshing to get another woman’s “take” on something , almost like having a coffee and chin wag with a good friend.

When woman come together we can move mountains and this book has definitely reaffirmed this to me personally. A must read for every woman whatever age, sharing and supporting each other can only make us stronger.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for my chance to read this great book.

Wow. I am blown away. What a truly inspiring novel from some extremely inspiring women - I didn't know how I'd feel about this book, but after reading it I feel like I could take on the world.

This is a book that no matter your age, no matter your background, you need to read it. Told by women, for women. This is the book that speaks volumes in the world of today.

I have never read through a book so fast. This collection of essays should be read by everyone.
Each piece has an author that is versed and passionate about the topic in which they are writing about.
There’s a bittersweet beauty in some of the articles, and I certainly hope they reach out to the people who need them the most.

As a big fan of the articles on The Pool, I was really excited to read this. I found myself particularly moved by the chapter on the #HomeToVote for the Irish Referendum. It's a great mix of thoughtful pieces on feminism and so well written. The list of contributors is impressive and also great for finding new writers that you maybe weren't familiar with. Loved it!