I’ve read Dawn O’Porters other work and always enjoyed it however I wasn’t sure I wanted to read about life in the pandemic as I think I’ve had almost enough of living through it myself now.
How wrong could I be? I loved this book.
Funny as always, honest and I just want to be Dawn’s friend and hang out as I think it would be so much fun.
Dawn has struggled (as expected) with the death of one of her best friends this year s the honesty about how she felt was heartwarming.
She is also honest and funny about her family life and life with her kids.
Easy to read, easy to relate to and fun.
Great book.
Everyone should read it

I received a copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a non fiction book about Dawn’s experiences through lockdown which is written in diary form.

This really was not the book for me. I did not like the recurring theme of drugs and alcohol which spoilt the whole book for me as it is not something I ever choose to read about. I am sure that there is a demographic who will really enjoy this but I feel that it is maybe not aimed at someone in my age bracket.

I love Dawn O’P and her hilarious writing, she is just completely wonderful and I adore her. This lockdown memoir is genuinely touching, heartfelt, relatable and bloody funny. This entire year is total insanity and this book will forever be a karaoke love song to that crazy time we stayed still.

Dawn O’Porter has written a book that all of us living through the pandemic can relate to.I also live in California and shared the panic shopping going to Target and finding shelves empty.Dawn Shares her daily shut in life with her husband and two very young children,She is honest open real about her day to day life entertaining the kids a drink or two to survive. Overeating to cope something I know I’ve been doing. A really warm fun honest read that I enjoyed..#netgalley #lifeinpieces

This is a very honest account of life during lockdown! These diary extracts which cover 6 months are humorous, harrowing, filled with grief and pain and completely understandable. Thanks to Dawn for sharing this and makes me realise my lockdown experience wasn’t that bad at all!

Not for me. I didn't find the writing funny and the jumbled up nature of the diary entries made focusing a real task. I also could not get over just the inherent privilege that's talked about in these words - which will undoubtedly appear in hundreds of more books by various writers about the pandemic. I think you're better off reading something like Zadie Smith's 'Intimations' - there's not much you can get from this one.

Written with uncompromising honesty and wit, Life in Pieces documents the unprecedented events of 2020. Entering lockdown in a state of grief following the death of close friend Caroline Flack, Dawn O'Porter publishes extracts from her diary that will make you laugh, cry, and give a resounding 'oh, me too'. Living in LA with husband and two young boys, Dawn mainly gets through the isolation of lockdown with copious amounts of crisps, cheese, alcohol and edibles. Slightly concerned about her quarantine belly, she nevertheless continues to eat like every day is Christmas Day, and the extra pounds be damned. Answering the relentless questions about her favourite dinosaur on a daily basis, dealing with every body effluent from child and pet, and trying to get through the day, sanity intact, this book is highly relatable.

Dawn writes with sensitivity about the hardest of times, times when we are forced to isolate from loved ones, forced to recognise our own anxieties and fears, and recognise that even during a global pandemic, there is so much to be grateful for and that we are all sharing a common experience - 'the good, the bad, whatever our experience of this, we are all in some version of it together'.

2020 will be written about in history books, films and television will reference it for years to come, and if we're lucky we will come out of this time with greater empathy and compassion. Life in Pieces is honest, amusing, thought-provoking and a book that will make us feel that we are not alone in our struggles.

This is my longest review ever, because this book, deserves it all. A book that everyone needs to read in 2020. This book caused a shift in my thinking, my self believe and my motivation to dig myself out of my lockdown slumber. Dawn O Porter Thank you!

I sat on my bed after a late night watching the women's us open semi finals by 4.30am Serena is out and its 4.30am. Woke to an email from Harper Collins to invite me to read Dawn O Porter new book Life in Pieces, I went straight to Amazon to have a mooch. Ooo this could be interesting.

I started reading, I thought I will read the introduction. OMG a tear run down my face first from laughing about weed gummies and kaftans. Then Caroline Flack I got goose bumps and I didnt put down my kindle I kept reading.

Hello Mr Pandemic, Dawn writes like she is talking directly to you. The lockdown of 2020 it's harsh reality for a working mum and parenting. I laughed so hard as I can only imagine having young children through this year of covid.

The most in depth totally on point review of Twitter and its, wrath I have ever read. Hi five Dawn.

Dawn analysis of parenting is insightful....
Lego is hard... I laughed so much.


A must read for everyone, we were all in this together in 2020 and to share experiences like this is the best thing to come away with. We can't kick covid ass but we can laugh with Dawn O Porter.

I didn't know Caroline Flack personally, but her death floored me purely because she was such a bright light on my TV, I miss her too. Respect for a truly lovely discussion of some memories and a true awareness of how her death affected those closest to her so deeply

#NetGalley #DawnOPorter #HarperCollins #LifeinPieces #livesincovid2020 #bookreview

An intense viseral, self-deprecating glance into life in LA during the first 6 months of lockdown. Peering through this celebrity's lens, for me, was both amusing and harrrowing in equal parts. The book deals with many themes but grief, in all its guises, is an overarching thread and one that O'Porter addresses with often brutal honesty. The grief following the death of her friend but also of her mother. The striving to be a perfect mother when confined by the same clostrophobic four walls of both her home and the broader expectations that life in the fast lane brings.

This is my second book I’ve read of Dawns, I really enjoyed it and found myself relating to so much of her “diary”. COVID has effected us all, the whole world, none of us could prepare for it and are still figuring out how to live in our new normal. But Dawn writing about her lockdown experience has made me see the funny side of things, we all just can’t stop eating or thinking about food!

After being a long term fan of Dawn’s I was intrigued to read her first non fiction book.
When I received my email from Harper Collins to say I had been offered a NetGalley copy I was very excited!
I loved Dawn’s style of writing and it was so interesting to read her experiences as a working mother and wife during a global pandemic - amazing how much of her resonated with me, also a working mother and wife (on this side of the Atlantic though!)
The book’s pieces and diary enter IEPs are grouped collectively and cover all sorts including periods, grief, cooking and missing life in 2020.
I would highly recommend and say this is a must read.
Thank you so much to Rach at Harper Collins and NetGalley - oh and Dawn of course for writing the truth!

I have read and enjoyed both The Cows and So Lucky - also by this author so I got a bit excited when I saw she had a new one out soon. Then I got a bit disappointed as it's not a fiction book. Then I realised that, even though it's not fiction, well most of it, it's bound to be as entertaining and fulfilling as her fiction. Same voice...
So I dove in and, yes, brilliant. Funny and poignant and all things in between.
2020 has been a blooming strange year, and looks like it's well not over yet... Lockdown has been good to some people and, well, others, notsomuch...
This book is Dawn's experience. Homeschooling, grief (she had just lost someone very close), isolation, and a myriad of other obstacles to get over. Funny events, both natural and contrived had me laughing out loud on more than one occasion. Be prepared to run the gamut of emotions. Highs and lows. But still come out the other side intact... It's raw and honest, at times brutal but, and it's hard to put into words exactly why, so so worth reading.
I'm leaving you and myself with this final thought - wouldn't it be interesting to re-read this book in 10 years time when, hopefully, Covid and Lockdown are things of the past...
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

THis book is for anyone who has experienced lockdown (!) , parents of children, parents of boys, anyone experiencing the loss of a loved one and anyone that needs a bit of light relief for this exhausting 2020!!
I love Dawn's books already. This book is a diary of her lockdown experience I really enjoyed reading this and could sympathize with a lot of it - homeschooling, suddenly being a stay at home mum , missing friends , Whats App groups - yes yes ! Even though Dawn is in La and not Leamington Spa I could still relate to a lot of what she said - although it was margaritas as her pandemic drink of choice at 4pm - mine is a G&T! It is lovely when a book relates to what you are going through. As well as lockdown to contend with Dawn was also grieving for her lovely friend Caroline who tragically died a few months before and there are some lovely posts about how she has to cope with grief . This book had me laughing out loud . I will be recommending all of my friends to read this !

I rate Dawn and her writing and am a long term reader and Instagram follower. I was aware of her blogs about lockdown life and was excited to be in a position to read this. I think it's really well written. It seems extremely honest and raw but without being too morose, which is a hard thing to pull off. I enjoy her writing about parenting her sons. I felt a great deal of empathy with her struggles to be a perfect mother as I was a very imperfect one to my three, small children and like Dawn I found playing something that did not come naturally to me. These sections really lifted the bleakness of some of the stuff that Dawn was going through during lockdown. I was particularly impressed with her writing about Caroline Flack. It was heartfelt and brave to write about grief like that. It also managed to remain respectful of her friend's memory and I thought it was really wonderfully done.

I really enjoy Dawn o Porters writing and this was just lovely. I loved reading about someone else’s experience with lock down. It’s nice to know we aren’t alone in this. There was a lovely part about Caroline Flack aswell. I’d highly recommend if you are looking for a little bit of entertainment.

Also this book wouldn’t open for me on kindle either but it opened perfectly on Adobe digital editions.

I really enjoy Dawn O'Porter's writings and I loved the idea of her writing about the Coronavirus experience. It was humorous and sweet, with touching writings about her friend Caroline. It's nice to have a book like this to look back on when all this is a memory and remember what life was like in 2020. I enjoyed the diary nature of the book as well.

I’ve enjoyed Dawns fiction writing since reading Goose and Paper Aeroplanes so I was really interested to see what this non fiction piece from her would be like. I was not disappointed. I loved the diary style entries, the brutal honesty, the shock to the system that the pandemic and lockdown was for us all.
This book was in equal parts hilarious and really really sad. The parts where Dawn talks about losing her dear friend Caroline and dealing with her grief following that are heartbreaking and you can tell from her words what an amazing, beautiful person Caroline was, described in only a way a true friend could.
Dawn has a wonderful way of making this book relatable, I may be in sunny Yorkshire rather than LA but I’ve also had to deal with eating every packet of Crisps ever made during lockdown and I’ve cleaned up enough cat and toddler pee to sympathise!
I simply loved this book!

This book is utterly brilliant. It’s raw, honest, heartbreaking and laugh out loud funny, pick an emotion- it’s got it!
Dawn O’Porter manages to capture the true reality of many people’s behind closed doors lockdown and bring it to life on paper. I massively identify with huge chunks of this book, the Godzilla in the knickers, animals pissing and shitting everywhere, awful sleep and vivid dreams and the very real fear for the survival of buffets! I too have found solace in cupboards and I don’t even have the little people as an excuse - just the ever-present husband. Have you even done lockdown properly if you’ve not had a massive cry and hid in a locked room for five minutes peace?
I cannot recommend this book enough and I’ve never wanted a margarita more.

I’m a fan of Dawn O’Porters podcast and TV documentaries from back in the day. I’ve read some of her fiction but this is by far my favourite book of hers. Maybe it was refreshing to know how someone else is making it through the pandemic too. I loved reading about how fiercely she loves her family, pets and friends. I now want to watch her cook because all the meals she described sounded amazing. This is a great book for the time we are living in. Thank you to NetGalley for this EARC.