One minute Serena Mills is getting ready for her wedding, the next she is in a pub eating ice cream and drinking wine. Her family think she has made the biggest mistake of her life. But she thinks she deserves more than the life she was settling for.

Luckily one of her friends, Lola, from university has a spare room so she moves to London. On a drunken night Lola challenges Serena to 52 dates over the next year, one date a week. Surely she will find love with at least one of them.

This was a quick, easy and fun read.

Heartwarming and emotional. I found the character initially unlikable, jilting her fiancé on their wedding day. Realising that the spark has gone (could she not have realised sooner, I lost all sympathy for her at this point. At the start of the book). She moves to London and begins and new job and starts dating. I did find her more likable, and her supportive friends were well written.

Bethany Rutter has jumped the divide from YA to Adult with grace and aplomb. Like the characters in her YA books Serena is completely readable and very relatable. I always love how Bethany shows there are many ways to be happy and that all routes are valid. Serena goes through various steps on her way to self-discovery, learning to love herself and reminding herself that she has value. As a fat girl myself I know it's hard to let yourself take up space when you're already, y'know, taking up space so it's always lovely to read books where people are unashamedly themselves.

Body positivity has a ways to go in the media, in society, in ourselves but at least we have Bethany Rutter leading the charge in literature.

A great story full of emotion, from sadness through to laughter through to happiness. This book just keeps on giving.

I follow the author on social media so was really excited to read this. I found the character initially unlikable, jilting her fiancé on their wedding day. Realising that the spark has gone (could she not have realised sooner, I lost all sympathy for her at this point. At the start of the book). She moves to London and begins and new job and starts dating. I did find her more likable, and her supportive friends were well written.

It was an enjoyable read, but for me the initial jilting kind of soured it.

This was a brilliantly written novel, with writing that felt fast paced and quite ‘punchy’. I could feel the emotions and, at times, desperation, of the protagonist and was right there along for the ride with her. I must admit that I found an undertone of bitterness mixed with naivety in the characters personality, but this only highlighted the path that she takes throughout the book and gives an authentic background to the reasons why she makes some of the decisions she does!

The author has written this book with (that word again!) authenticity, and it was well suited for a millennial perspective. On that note, I have rated this novel as 4 stars, due to the fact that I can imagine the book being hard to keep with if you were any older than the characters within.

Overall, a great novel from Bethany Rutter. The first book I’ve read of hers, but not to be the last.

This was a very upbeat, feel-good story about a woman who runs away from her own wedding to completely restart life in her late twenties. I loved the fact that this book screamed body positivity and didn't include the regular clichés that you might expect from this type of story. I was rooting for Serena throughout and also loved her friends (sequel please!). It was heart-breaking at times and heart-warming at others. I will definitely be reading more from this author - perfect gloomy day, lost in a book read!

Serena is in her late twenties, has been with her partner for 10 years and then, on her wedding day, decides that this is not the life she wants. She is lucky enough to have a friend with a spare room in her London flat so moves there from the small town just in the country where she had lived with her fiance. As the title suggests, this book follows Serena as she gets her life back on track with help from old friend Lola and new buddy Nicole.

In some ways Serena behaves more like a man as she tries to catch up on "life" experiences which she missed out on over the previous 10 years; readers should probably not try to emulate her example. A fun read.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this book.

I enjoyed this book, it made me laugh and as an overweight lady I could see where our main character was coming from.

There was some occasional swearing in the book that felt like it didn't fit in, it was rare but still stood out.

Welcome to your life centres Serena who should be at her wedding, but instead, is sat eating ice ream and drinking wine in a Harvester off the M25. Everyone thinks she’s gone mad. She’s jilted the man everyone told her she was ‘so lucky’ to find. But Serena wants to find love. A love she deserves – not one she should just feel grateful for. Serena escapes to the big city and with the help of her friends, sets herself a challenge: 52 weeks, 52 dates, 52 chances to find love.

This book is such an entertaining uplifting read! I loved Serena, she is a genuinely loveable character and I adored following her journey. The book is so heart-warming to read but also utterly hilarious and filled with wit and unexpected humour. I was hooked, desperate to find out how it would end and the decisions Serena would make.

This is such a positive read! Through the journey of Serena, the author addresses contemporary themes of confidence, self-love, body positivity and happiness. This is a book to read in 2022!

A reasonably enjoyable read which felt like it was going to get a bit deeper and darker but never quite made the jump. It was refreshing to see a protagonist who was trying to live in the body she had and not go through some self-improvement journey to be happy.

But it was kind of jarring that everyone was judged/described by their appearance (both women and men - forensically at points) when that's what our heroine was scared about happening to her. And every man she dated/slept with was either gorgeous, gorgeous and rich/famous or gorgeous with a giant kn*B.

Also the language - once you've read the phrase 'it's . . .a lot' about 17 times it starts to get really grating. Is this how millennials speak?

Finallyyyyyyyyyyyy a book where a plus size woman is the lead, and she's not a joke and she's not on a diet, she's just figuring things out!

As a fat, single lady myself this speaks to me on a deep level, and really is just the tonic I need with all my own apprehensions about dating. Serena is a really interesting but very relatable character and it was a pleasure to be on her journey.

Bethany's other YA books are the books I wished I'd had when I was younger. Welcome to Your Life is the book I'm glad to have now I'm here.

Such a fun and joyful book - Bethany writes with such ease and I can't wait to see what else she goes on to create.

A joyous, engaging story that will help so many people not feel alone. An warm, clever story focusing on love and dating is exactly what we need!

Brilliant and life-affirming! I adored this book and found it bursting with humour on every page without being superficial. There is in fact a real heart and a message of self-love in there.
I loved it and it put a huge smile on my face.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest feedback.

Serena jilts her fiancé just minutes before their wedding, he's the only man she's ever slept with and they've been together ten years, everyone says she's lucky to have someone as good-looking and solvent and h=kind as Alistair but Serena realises (almost too late) that they've become cosy friends and the spark has gone.

So, to the horror of her family, she cancels the wedding and moves to London to stay with her best friend Lola, who gets her a job as a copywriter with a jewellery company owned by a college friend. Serena decides to put herself out there and resolves to go on a Tinder date a week, not realising that she is sabotaging herself by only swiping right on men than she thinks might fancy a plus-sized woman (ie mediocre) rather than men she finds attractive. Inevitably what follows are a series of appalling dates with weird men!

With the help of her work friend Nicole, who is also plus-sized but carries herself with a confidence and panache that Serena can't emulate, and Lola Serena realises that old cliché that in order to be lovable you first need to love yourself, and if that don't work, fake it 'til you make it.

I did enjoy this, don't get me wrong, it was charming and funny without trying too hard. I liked Serena and I liked the way that there was no Hollywood ending, (view spoiler) but I did feel that some parts of the book were maybe created to prove a point, or make a statement about bigger women (speaking as a significantly overweight woman myself) rather than flowing with the plot. Also there were some random profanities, don't get me wrong I swear with the best of them but these weren't often and didn't feel natural in the context. Final gripe, why does Nicole call Serena 'my dude' so often? Is that a thing, do women say that to each other now? But those are minor gripes, things that kind of pulled me out of the story briefly, otherwise I really enjoyed it.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Welcome to Your Life was just the perfect first book of the year for me. It was full of love, friendship, self-acceptable and body positivity! I cannot rave about it enough. Bethany Rutter is already one of my auto-buy authors thanks to her YA but this has just cemented her as one of my favs. Also, can we all just take a moment to appreciate Nicole. It is only day 10 of 2022 and she is already one of my favourite people of the year!

Serena jilts her soon to be husband on the morning of the wedding… you would think she would have known before the morning that she didn’t want to marry him, right? This book has been an enjoyable read from start to finish, following Serena on her journey from being the jiltee on her wedding day to moving house, job and friends to start a new life! Excellent journey, very Bridget Jones in areas and an enjoyable read. Loved the fact the main character battled with insecurities like most women do and were portrayed through her relationships with others! Great easy read!

Welcome to Your Life is a romantic comedy novel about a woman who runs away from her wedding day and has to find what she wants next. Serena was stuck in the unexciting, and it took facing up to her actual wedding day to realise it wasn't right for her. Instead, she moves to London and moves in with her best friend, gets a new job and a new friend, and sets herself the challenge of going on dates.

Yes, this book is a romcom, but it's also really focuses on Serena's journey in terms of confidence and finding what she wants from life in her late twenties. The narrative addresses body image and confidence a lot, not necessarily saying there's a single answer, but also not giving Serena a story about trying to lose weight in any way. I liked her friends (who could definitely have a sequel written about them) and also the way Serena's move to London was depicted (she revels in being in a big city and explores things on her own, which is nice to see).

Welcome to Your Life isn't the sort of book I would typically read, but I've heard of Rutter from the book podcast she does, and I was glad to read something different. It is well-written and easy to read, making it ideal to pick up when you need something light and uplifting.

This was a light, fun and empowering and sexy read. Bethany Rutter seamlessly transitions into adult novels. Her books are always so easy to read, and I was rooting for the main character and her circle of friends. I think Bethany did a really good job of exploring the idea of settling down with the first good looking guy that you meet, just by virtue of the fact that he's good looking, and a fairly good guy, and he's the best everyone thinks you could do. I would have liked to see a bit more exploration of the character of Nicole, who is also plus size, but overall I really enjoyed this book.