As we are in the midst of a second lockdown, Dawn’s book regales us with her journal from the first one. Living in LA, the mother of 2 young children, and a lady who’d just lost her best friend pre-pandemic, Dawn does a miraculous job of surviving a pandemic - her book is searingly honest, funny and at times, quite sad - showing emotions all of us experience in our lives, but magnified through a lockdown lens. I feel so lucky (sorry, I couldn’t resist dropping that in there, DO’P fans will know!) to have been chosen to read this book. It may be called Life In Pieces, but in these dark times I think it will be going someway to helping put some people’s lives back together.

As a friend mentioned in their review, I wish I had written a journal of lockdown, similar to Dawn's in Life in Pieces.

Dawn O'Porter shares her feelings of life during isolation with two adventurous children and her husband. Her story telling is great and I admired her resilience. Plus, it's no secret she loves margaritas. However, in some entries I felt there was an air of showing off. I'm sure that's not her intention but it jarred with me slightly.

I was really unsure about this book. Do we really need a lockdown journal from someone living the dream in LA? So when I started reading I disliked it. But then Dawn mentioned she had started drinking cocktails at 5pm, listening to audio books in the kitchen and cooking elaborate meals for her family and given that I had been doing all those things (G&T being my tipple of choice) I thought maybe we did.

I'm a big fan of Dawn O'Porter. The Cows and So Lucky are very good so I had high hopes for this. It's not the same....amazingly being in lockdown in a world wide pandemic is reality not fiction and this is her life warts and all. As a mum of 2 full on boys myself I totally related to her. We were all just trying to get through it as best we could. Her passages talking about Caroline Flack got me. I only knew her as a TV personality but her death really affected me so I can't imagine what it was like to feel her loss if you were close to her.

On the whole it's a good book. Very funny in places and I enjoyed the ride.

Life In Pieces is Dawn O'Porters lockdown diary. I'm a big Dawn O'Porter fan, so much so that I pay for her Patreon, on which she wrote a lockdown diary, which is pretty much what this book is made up of, broken up into topics and interspersed with essays. So I'd already read some of it before. And I still loved it!

I wasn't sure I really needed to read a lockdown diary, especially the week I went back into self isolation due to a covid scare, but thanks to O'Porter's hilarious look at lockdown life and parenting, I actually really enjoyed reading this and was constantly looking forward to picking it up!

The short diary entries make it a quick read. Pieces of the book are themed around different topics, food, alcohol, grief, but the diary entries themselves are like a collection of random thoughts, which makes the book feel really personal. Along with humorous stories of lockdown with two young boys (a lot of poop and dinosaurs) and two pets (again a lot of poop!), there are also many personal moments where O'Porter shares her grief after losing her best friend earlier this year, and memories from when she was growing up.

One thing I will mention is that I'm not a huge fan of the whole "mummy needs her cocktail" vibe, or weed gummy in this case, because that's legal in LA. I get it, it's trendy now, but whilst I'm not judging Dawn or saying she has an alcohol problem, it is still something to be taken seriously and I did find almost every page seemed to mention having a drink. Personally, and probably down to my own experiences, I just don't find counting down the hours until I can have a drink that funny or relatable and I think there is a danger within making drinking every day seem like the normal thing to do. But that is just me being quite picky!

If you're a fan of Dawn O'Porter you will definitely love this. If you're a mum of young children you'll probably find it fairly relatable. If you like blog and diary style writing you'll find this an enjoyable read!

O'Porter is a brilliant writer and wonderfully down-to-earth. I howled with laughter at the anecdote about the cucumber and aloe vera face mask! There is great comfort and camaraderie to be found in "Life In Pieces". Whilst there is humour and honesty, there are also moments of genuine poignancy. It's life-affirming, inspiring and made me feel seen. Perfect second lockdown antidote!

I’m a big fan of Dawn. This book was heartfelt and emotional, especially the parts relating to Caroline Flack. But the constant references to weed gummies was incredibly irritating. Sorry.

I would like to thank the author, the publisher and Netgalley for trusting me with an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Dawn O’Porter has been thinking about life. In lockdown. Mostly from a cupboard. Life in Pieces is a book for anyone who has been thrown into a life that they did not plan, or who just wants to stick it to 2020. When it looks like everything is falling apart, we will piece it back together.
I wanted to like this book as I have enjoyed Dawn’s other books. However, I did not enjoy it at all and i did not finish it. I just felt that it was self-indulgent throughout. Even if you look at part of the books synopsis it gives the reader the first instance of this indulgence; “anyone who’s been thrown into a life that they didn’t plan”. There is no one on the planet that has felt this was an unplanned year and did not have any of the privileges that O’Porter has. It just felt wrong reading about her privileged life when others are dying from this horrible disease.

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I have read a few of Dawn’s book which I really liked and remember seeing her on T V years ago.

This book is just wonderful.

It’s written part in diary form and starts with the death by suicide of her good friend T V presenter Caroline Flack. It is a 2020 ‘lock down’ diary where she tells us about what is going on with her day, her thoughts and how she gets through it all – so funny and real with two small children, Husband. 1 dog, 1 cat at home. It is wonderfully funny with sad bits as she is trying to live and cope in her own way with the sadness of loss and move forward. A lot of it is what we are all thinking at this crazy time.

This is a honest, warts and all, account of how Dawn and her family deal with their ‘ new normal’ as well as how she deals with the loss of her friend, having more contact with her family – via video link and having time to reflex and breath.

There are not many people’s diary entries I would want to read about 2020 but I knew Dawn’s would be good. It didn’t disappoint.

I am a fan of Dawn's fiction books so I couldn't wait to read this. I loved this at first, she summed up everything that I was feeling as the first lockdown commenced. I laughed at the hilarity and commiserated with her on her sadness and also the craziness of the times we are living in. However I didn't enjoy the references to drug taking. About 30% in I struggled to maintain enthusiasm for reading any more. I pushed to 40% and gave up sadly. I too kept a diary in the early days of lockdown but I will probably just keep them for my own private memories. Not for me.

Brilliant bit of light reading.
I love Dawn O’Porter, she tells it how it is.
Life in Pieces is basically a day by day account of Dawn’s life. It’s not all glitz and glam, when you life in LA, especially when there’s a pandemic.
Lots of laugh out loud parts but also a look into the grief Dawn is experiencing after the death of her, much loved, close friend, Caroline Flack.

I can see part two on the horizon.

Dawn O'Porter is so entertaining and I really couldn't wait to get my hands on this book. It didn't disappoint either. Despite its content (life in lockdown) and the time during which I read it (in lockdown), I tool great satisfaction and relief from her words, from her comic attitude towards events, decisions, things, about which we have absolutely no control. It was interesting to see how others experience lockdown and how they behave through its duration. I too have kids and her crisps and play dough incidents made me laugh out loud- so too did the references to booze!!!
This is a really funny, nail on the head type of book, a great laugh, and a great book for the current times we live in.

Life in Pieces is based on Dawn O’Porter’s diary entries, written during lockdown. Being mother to two young sons (5 and 2), and trying to come to terms with the death of close friend Caroline Flack, makes lockdown a struggle at times, and the entries reflect this. I think many parents, all around the world, will share Dawn’s concerns over homeschooling during this time, and the fears that your child will be missing out on key developments.

It also provides a fascinating insight into life in Los Angeles. For me, one of the big differences is the open mentions of marijuana, and the fact that they can buy and regularly eat ‘gummy bears’, all legally and above board. The Black Lives Matter protests also took place literally outside their front door.

The only downside of reading Life in Pieces in one go as a book, rather than over several months, is that there are repetitions at times, with subjects returned to at seemingly random parts of the story. However, it’s an interesting book, with highs and lows (many bodily fluids from children and pets) and many moments to make you smile. I have enjoyed Dawn’s fictional work, and this book is just as good.

Some really funny moments - definitely relatable. Not a book I could read in one sitting, but nice to dip in and out of. Lacked the compelling factor, but a good and interesting read nonetheless.

Life in Pieces is Dawn O'Porter's lockdown diary and musings on her personal experience of 2020. Some of it relatable, some of it not so much.

Firstly I LOVE Dawn O'Porter and was very excited to read her new book as I have loved all of her previous ones.
This is very different to her usual and while I was disappointed that it was more biographical I still enjoyed it. The diary entries are so relatable and made me laugh to see similar thoughts that I have also experienced during a weird Covid hit world. It took me a little while to finish as I found I kept leaving it and going back to it, but it was an easy read and I didn't need to remind myself about a plot which was good!

Wonderful, laugh out loud and engaging read. I could not put this book down, there was so much I could relate to in it. I was a little disturbed how easy soft drugs are to obtain and consume in some parts of the US, but it made me realise that they are an accepted part of recreation there. Can't wait for the next book. .

Hmmm. I loved So Lucky by Dawn O’Porter but I am sad to say that i did not enjoy this book.
I accept Dawn is trying to be funny about life in lockdown but I just didn't find her musings funny at all.
Maybe it is just too close to actual events and that if read in a couple of years time the humour will engage the reader because life has moved on and it will be fun to remember what happened by way of Dawn's diary entries and anecdotal meanderings.
However for me, the humour felt manufactured and there was so much repetition and contradiction that I found it hard to read this with any real pleasure.
There are an awful lot of references to Caroline Flack and whilst her untimely death was so very sad, the way in which it is constantly referred to in this book is somewhat distasteful. But maybe it just isn't for me because I do not watch TV or follow celebrity lives.
The book just screams ME, ME, ME as I read and I couldn't find a way to connect meaningfully with the self obsessed entries.
I am sure however that I will be in the minority with my views and I genuinely wish the author well with the book. The title is catchy, the cover appealing and there will be many true O'Porter fans who simply lap this up.

I really wanted to like this book. I love Dawn and usually love her writing style but you could tell this was just a quick money maker. The essays were from her patreon so if i was someone whod already paid for that then bought the book id be sorely disappointed. The essays are very self indulgent I was hoping for... more. I enjoyed the parts where she discussed her loss and love over her friend dying otherwise it was not for me. We live such far removed lives and I couldn't get on with the book. I did finish but found myself skim reading a lot which is a shame. I wouldnt recommend the book.

I found Dawn's memoirs to be humorous, inspiring and hugely relatable.  Dealing with grief, parenthood and everyday life during lockdown we follow Dawn's thoughts and feelings as she maneuvers this strange time.

I don't really read a lot of memoirs and autobiographies, however, found this entertaining, witty and easy to pick up and put down.

I read this before wave 2 really kicked in and was amazed at how much I’d forgotten about the first few months of the pandemic and loved how even though D O’P lives in LA and is incredibly successful, pets, children, food and alcohol dependency are great levellers. Feelings too. There’s so much to relate too in this book, it felt like a best mate confessing all with the express intention of making you feel less like you’re navigating 2020 on your own.