Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

A great debut novel focusing of friendship, community and personal growth.

I loved the development of both Millie and Bell and fell in love the supporting characters. The plot beats were a bit off - the build up to the twist seemed to come out of the blue over halfway through the book... However, I read this in one sitting and that definitely didn’t put me off!

Loved this book. It's such a sweet book focused on friendship, community and loving yourself when everything else falls apart. Really good read for 2019.

A heartwarming book about friendship, community and finding your own kind of happiness.

Living My Best Li(f)e gives us an insight into great new friendships, as well as there being a hint of romance, characters standing up for themselves, and has such a great sense of community.

A lovely writing style and great sense of humour, I'll look forward to seeing what Claire Frost gives us next.

Such a wonderful debut novel!
Absolutely relatable, witty, warm and with a theme running through to be happy with who you are, I recommend this to all my friends who have had too much social media in their lives.
Love Claire Frost & can't wait to see what she writes next.

Sorry to say but I could not finish this book. The concept is alright but the writing and especially the dialogue style was definitely not for me.

In Living My Best Life we follow Bell and Millie in dual POV. Millie is a single Mum and also an Instagram influencer and Bell is approaching 40 and is trying to find her feet in life following a break up with her long term partner. The two become slightly unlikely friends and help each other to “live their best lives”.

In the first of Millie’s chapters, I immediately knew she’d be my favourite. I felt for what she was going through and how she felt a need to perfect and filter her life. There was such fantastic discussion of peoples use of Instagram and the need to measure up to everyone else, as well as how you can feel like everyone else has a perfect life but realistically, you never really know what someones life is like behind that grid.

I wasn’t a huge fan of Millie’s son being called Wolf, but it all made sense when it was revealed that his Dad named him. That leads me to how Millie dealt with her ex, Louis, I wanted to punch him frequently, but Millie dealt with it like a pro. I’m sure co-parenting can be hard but it felt like a realistic depiction to me, there were great parts and bad parts like in most of life.

A highlight of this book was the friendships, especially Bell and Millie’s. They were such a source of support for each other and they enhanced each other's lives. In so many books romance takes centre stage but seeing a friendship take centre stage was so refreshing. In addition, Bell had some wonderful friends too and everything wasn’t rosy all the time which made it realistic.

Bell felt like the main protagonist to me despite the book being dual POV, this is because she went on the biggest journey. She starts the book in a slump and spending a lot of time at home but throughout she came out of her shell and found her way. Bell discovered who was she alone and found her happiness again, it was a great journey to be part of.

Overall, this was a wonderful feel-good read which I flew through. A must-read for any contemporary loving social media user!

I was really intrigued by the concept of this book but unfortunately I found it dragged quite a bit. I found it slow, and rather hard to get into.

Living My Best Life is Claire Frosts debut novel and although it was ok there were a lot of things happening along the way that in real life would not be as easily solved as they were in this book.
The book is split into alternate chapters of Bell and Millie, this I thought worked well as it allowed you to really get to know the characters and their thoughts and feelings.
We first meet Bell at the beginning of the book after her best friend dragged her out one Saturday night after not coming out for weeks since January as she had split with her boyfriend and was lining in her pjs. Millie is a single mum and has a lot to contend with being a single parent although her online life is all filtered to make it look like she has the best life.
This book was ok, I would have liked to have seen more genuine struggle and the # did irritate me at times but on the whole it was ok just needed more drama that was relatable.
I would like to thank Netgalley and Simon And Schuster for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to netgalley I got to read this e-book before paperback publication date (5th September) in return for my review of thoughts about this book so carry on reading if you’re interested 😂
You never know when a much needed friendship is going to happen, Mille and Bell certainly didn’t. Both looking for something to do with their time but managed to start a way to save the thing that brought them together - the local community centre.

Bell, recently dumped by her boyfriend of 10 years, is now looking for ways to meet new friends/ build on old and create new skills. So she decided to sign up to the photography course. Not only does she gain new friends, but is there a potential love interest brewing up?

Millie has the perfect life, well on Instagram she has. It’s amazing what a bit of photoshopping and editing can do. Her #ootd gets purchased and returned back to the store on the same day, and the clean house pictures you see aren’t showing the pushed away mess and hiding things that aren’t perfect. Determined to not be belittled by famous ex (also dad of her son) she goes out to take Wolfie to more fun activities as the community centre rather than being cooped indoors.
Which is how Millie and Bell meet. Who needs oodles of followers when you can have real friendship which doesn’t need any filters!
I honestly loved every second of this book, and it’s extremely relatable right now with all the Instagram influencers out there. Below is the link to buy it in paperback and on amazon!

About the author:
Claire Frost grew up in Manchester, the middle of three sisters. She always wanted to do a job that involved writing, so after studying Classics at Bristol University she started working in magazines. For the last 10 years she's been at The Sun on Sunday's Fabulous magazine, where she is Assistant Editor and also responsible for the title's book reviews. She can mostly be found at her desk buried under a teetering TBR pile.

Fabulous characters in a relatable setting exploring friendship, fundraising & relationships. Great read

Fast and chill reads are always the hit for me. I definitely enjoy drinking my hot chocolate and cuddling my blanket while reading a chill book on my sofa. '' Living My Best Li(f)e '' was a modern-day book, that captures today's problems, and it felt familiar, because I have seen these problems in my surrounding. It focuses mostly on social media, and the differences between what we present online, and who we really are in the real world.

We have one woman - Bell - who is about to turn 40, and her comfort is broken when her man decides to leave her after years of togetherness.

We also have another woman, Millie, in her mid-thirties, and her little son Wolf (who names their child Wolf?). Millie fell in love with a football star Louis and had a child with him. To her disappointment, she realized the man she is in love with is the most unreliable parent in the world. She also happens to be an Instagram star, that only shows the world what she wants them to see.

While the followers see expensive dresses and well-behaved child, the reality shows that Millie takes a picture of the dresses and returns them to the shop, unable to afford them. She is also receiving calls from Wolfie's school that he has not be behaving in his best manners.

When these two women accidentally meet, they turn out to be besties. In fact, they became besties so fast, that I had to laugh out loud at how bizarre and unrealistic that was. Do you ever go to a coffee shop, say hi to a person, and then THE SAME DAY, THE SAME CONVERSATIONS you both start sharing your deepest secrets? Yes - it was that bizarre.

I really wanted to love '' Living My Best Li(f)e '' , as it captured a lot of problems. But it only captured the surface of these problems, then solved them instantly and moved on. And I wasn't satisfied. There were so many little plot problems that the author kept adding to the book randomly to keep the story going, and kept resolving them one by one - no anticipation, no hunger for one more chapter. Disappointing.

First of all, all the characters were not realistic. We have this woman that keeps saying she can be on her own, but she also keeps complaining every second of the day.

Then, we have this other woman, who seems like such a person that everyone is looking up to, but in fact, she is too scared to say no to her ex-love and father of her child, and she keeps up with all his nonsense on a daily bases.

Last, but not least, we have the 5-year-old Wolf boy, who talks like a 20-year-old boy, but behaves like a toddler, and I don't know how to react to that.

And finally, we have ''the rest of the characters'', who were mentioned and had their own roles in the book, but didn't have enough of a back story or air-time in order to be remembered by the audience.

The author also introduced us to a plot twist, that came out unexpectedly - but suddenly the government were about to destroy their community center and it was up to them to collect money and save this place in a record time. How convenient for the story, right? With no building up to it, the problem just raised from the ground... And you can all imagine the happy endings and soppy stories that followed with their success.

So yeah - that got me, and I didn't believe it for a second, and therefore this review. I really wanted to love Living My Best Li(f)e, but nothing worked out. Disappointing characters, plots and lack of thrill. Not a great experience for me. I wouldn't recommend it, but if you choose to read it, I would love to know what you think! <3

Thank you to the team at Netgalley and Simon & Schuster UK, for providing me with an E-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Living My Best Life By Claire Frost

I was lucky to be sent a digital copy of this book by Simon & Schuster UK through Netgalley.

For those of us who have Instagram the story was very relatable, as we swipe through peoples posts & get a vision of ‘their perfect lives’

There are two main characters in this book one of whom is Millie aka @mi_bestlife a successful online influencer, her insta story shows a completely different angle & story to her life as a single Mum though, thanks to her photos going through rigorous filters, cropping & special effects before she would even consider hitting the ‘post’ button.

Bell is the other main character who is nearing her 40th Birthday & trying to rebuild her life after her boyfriend of 10 years leaves her. She thinks her life is a mess compared to other people, especially following Millie on her insta feed & reading all her #blessed hashtags.

Real life brings the two ladies together & Bell quickly realises that reality & what Millie posts are polar opposites & tries to convince Millie to be more authentic, even taking over her insta feed occasionally to prove a point!

The two become very good friends & become involved in a community project, which also brings new love into their lives!

This story is about friendship & ‘keeping it real’

A very funny take on insta-life & characters who you can imagine yourself having a drink with. I also felt myself wanting to join the photography class! I will miss reading about all their antics!

This really resonated with me, Bell is suddenly left alone just before her 40th birthday and we follow her as she navigates the single life and meeting new friends. Truthful and humorous, I really enjoyed this book. Thanks NetGalley!

What a wonderful debut novel, so fresh, funny and interesting. The characters are so likeable you just cant help but root for them. A wonderful story about friendship, social media and living your best life. This book not only entertains but it leaves you questioning your own social media life, looking forward to future books from Claire now.


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

Living my best life, a story which has themes relevant to today, like how we present ourselves on Social Media.
It is a nice, fun story for a hot summers day.

A great debut novel filled with laughter and fun
I loved getting to know the characters throughout this book.
I liked the writers style and how she managed to weave humour throughout the whole book

Oh this book was just absolute perfection. It has all the feelings of those classic rom coms we love so much but with a fresh take that comes from a debut novelist especially when that someone is so wrapped up in the world of social media.



Bell and Millie are great characters to spend this novel with. They have just the kind of flaws that I love to read about that make them so likable and so easy to relate to. Bell is struggling to get over a break up and also panicking about turning 40. She has a lack of confidence and a lack of joy for life. I loved watching her grow and develop over the course of this novel because she really is a lovely person and I wanted to see her literally living her best life. Millie is one of those people we really can't believe exists but it really is a job these days to be a social media influencer but it isn't as shiny and bright as it would seem as we are beginning to realise in the real world. You would think that she has it all, a beautiful son with a footballer for a dad and the chance to schmooze luxury brands at London parties all in the name of instagram. But Millie is also suffering from a lack of self-confidence that is only further fuelled by those online trolls. You can see you're going to be in for a treat with these two at the helm.



I love the fact that this book is structured so that we switch back and forth between these two ladies and we also gain the ability to see some situations from both points of view... no spoilers of course. I love the fact that these two women approach social media from very different points of view but both are aware of its strengths and weaknesses. This is explored so well over the course of the book. The fact that social media can be used for great things but it can also cause pain and trauma and isn't always as glossy as it would be made out to be. Claire Frost really doesn't handle this issue well without this being an issues driven book, she examines the pros and cons of social media through the lives of her characters and this makes the events of the book just as easy to identify with as Bell and Millie themselves.



There are also some brilliantly developed side characters in this novel. I absolutely loved Bell's friend Suze. She is so funny and brings a touch of diversity to the book as well which is never a bad things. I was discussing with a friend of mine that we would both love to be mates with Suze, I think she is a great person to have around and I really wouldn't mind seeing more from her in the future.



Overall this is just a really great read for so many reasons. It is well paced and had me turning the pages to find out what was going to happen next with Bell and Millie. It is easy to relate to and it does a great job of exploring the truth about social media without that being directly what the book is about. This feels like a classic romcom with a fresh new twist and I urge you to add it to your reading list now.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster for my copy of this book via netgalley. I have seen Claire host a Fabulous event a few years ago so the name was already familiar to me. I also heard an extract at the Spring Blogger Event hosted by Books and the City earlier this year. Sadly my schedule has been full to the brim so I have only just managed to fit in some time to read it.

The premise of this story is very interesting. We all know that we shouldn't believe everything we see or read online but we can also easily get sucked into the glossy photos that we see on social media.

The story follows two women Bell and Millie. Bell is a 39-year-old woman who recently got dumped by her boyfriend of 10 years and Millie is mum to little 5-year-old Wolfie. Millie is a social influencer, while she has a lot of followers she doesn't really have any friends. When these two bump into each other they soon become fast friends.

This is a heartwarming story. It has so many important themes running through it. This story deals with postnatal depression, loneliness, bullying and heartbreak. The story had a shaky start and I wasn't sure about it but the story quickly progressed and I soon fell in love with all the characters. I'm not ashamed to admit I had a tear or two running down my face on more than one occasion.

This was a great debut and I can't wait to see what Claire brings us in the future. I can see so much potential from Claire, I am really looking forward to seeing her grow and blossom into an excellent author.

This was easy to read, but there wasn’t really much of a story, and that didn’t reflect the book’s title. Bell and Millie are likeable but Bell (at 39) constantly being described as ‘the older woman’ as a point of comparison grated. I think there are some powerful messages in with the narrative but it’s all a bit wishy washy. Nevertheless, it’s an easy read with a likeable cast, and no drama, which is sometimes exactly what you need!