a powerful reminder of the significance of personal narratives in shaping our understanding of the world. In this brief yet impactful book, Shukla celebrates the diversity of human experiences and underscores the importance of sharing our stories with authenticity and courage. With empathy and insight, Shukla encourages us to embrace our own unique voices and perspectives, recognizing the transformative power of storytelling in fostering empathy, connection, and social change.

Often craft books about writing are geared towards specific genres, but Your Story Matters by Nikesh Shukla works for both fiction and non-fiction. And if you are unsure which genre best suits the story you want to tell, there are exercises to help you figure that out as well.

Shukla is clear that this is guide to writing your story not getting your story published, which a distinction that I appreciated him making. This is a book to take your time with, allowing space for reflection once you've completed some of the writing prompts before moving on to the next one.

Overall, I really enjoyed Shukla's approach which is full of practical advice for getting you from the 'I have an idea' stage to having a completed piece – be it an essay, short story or a novel.

This is an incredibly helpful book for writers of all levels of experience. It's something I had to pick up and put down on several occasions in order to give my brain room to breathe and carry out the exercises too. It's a very well written book (which is helpful considering it's about helping the reader take ownership of their stories).

This is such a brilliant book. Nikes Shula writes in the same way that he speaks, approaching the challenges of writing in a friendly, personal, and honest way. The focus is on writing your story as opposed to getting published, which I think is a really important distinction. I have been on writing courses run by literary agencies and it’s really hard to get away from what they’re looking for in a writer and a story, and that is not conducive to getting down to the writing that is true to you. The exercises in this book are helpful and relevant in helping “warm up” in the same way that an athlete would flex their muscles in training. If you’re a writer, you may be familiar with the creeping sense that you need to be doing the “real” work of writing of your masterpiece-in-waiting, but really, all writing leads somewhere and these exercises are very useful on the journey to getting there. I will need to go back to some of the exercises as was keen to read right through the book, but this is exactly what the book is for – it’s by no means a rigid handbook of doing things “the right way” but offers prompts to help you find your own way.

I thoroughly enjoyed this non-fiction guide about writing. For any inspiring writer, this is both informative and motivating. Providing heaps of inspirational exercises to try, this is definitely one I will be keeping in my library for future reference. Neither preachy nor challenging, this is personal, practical and well worth picking up if you have any interest in writing or how writer's create their works.

As a writer, I am always on the lookout for new writing craft books to sharpen my skills. This one caught my eye more than usual because of the title and description about how your story matters and your voice is important. I think, as writers, we all have the tendency to doubt our writing, doubt that anyone would ever want to read something we’ve poured our heart and soul to. After all, why does our voice matter in a world so big?

I found the things the author had to say fascinating. How we identify with stories because we see ourselves in them, how at critical times in our lives we turn to stories because we see ourselves in the characters. How stories have the power to change our lives, make us feel less alone. This couldn’t be more true. I loved reading about the authors’ input and the snippets of their own life they slotted into the book. It made me feel like I was sitting down with an old friend, listening to what they had to say.

There were so many tips and things to think about in this book, allowing me to explore and discover things about myself and my writing that I didn’t know before. There were plenty of exercises to help me along, to get me inspired and thinking about the stories I want to tell. I got so many ideas just reading this book and taking part in the prompts. Ideas for fresh stories, characters and situations. Ideas for books I’m working on. It was honestly a goldmine of the various things the author said that sparked my brain off into thinking and looking at things differently (which, as a writer, is so important and just what you need to get yourself out of a block).

This is a worthy book for any writer’s to be read list. Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and author, for a chance to read and review this book.

This is an amazing book for anyone who wants to write!

It's super easy to digest and there are some amazing bits that really clicked for me, and I would go as far as saying its the most useful book of it's kind that i have come across!

Highly recommend!

This was a very easy to read book which was written as if having a chat with a friend. It covers writing both fiction and non-fiction and includes many useful and in-depth writing exercises. It is full of actionable writing advice and is an honest and authentic account of life as a writer.

Part 1 is about finding your writing voice, part 2 is about planning your story, part 3 covers character creation, part 4 guides you in creating your setting and part 5 is all about editing. One thing I really liked about this book was that the author stresses how important it is to follow your natural writing instinct and not be a slave to the rules. It is important to be aware of the rules but not let them stifle your unique voice. This is really good advice that more books should cover.

I’ve read a lot of books on writing but this one comes at it from a different perspective. The author doesn’t just tell you how to do it. Instead, he guides us, asks us questions and encourages us to answer them. It is a ‘yes, writing is hard but we are in this together’ kind of book rather than a ‘these are the rules; now go off and do it’ instruction manual. I recommend this to anyone who is a writer and wants to read a book that will gently guide them towards writing their best novel/essay/piece of non fiction.

I have deducted a star for two reasons: first, because of the scattered passive-aggressive comments about racial issues that are not necessary nor appropriate in a book like this, and secondly, because in some places the narrative became cringingly over-familiar, such as when the author went on about what nicknames we could call him. While some people may like this, I felt it added nothing to the learning experience of the book and was, quite frankly, irritating.

Other than these minor annoyances, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it. With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a free advance review copy. All opinions in this review are my own.