Quirky and fun, a relatable read for every woman over the age of 40. I loved the characters and so many things were familiar. Definitely recommending to all of my friends!

Have You Got Anything Stronger? follows a year in the life of four best friends as they navigate careers, friendship, love, sex, money and children.

In just under a year we follow the plight of four best friends; Sally who's pretty sure her 3 kids are spawns of the devil and thinks a concussion is equivalent to a spa break, Kate who's single and working hard at her career and keeping her image, Claire who's getting a divorce and dealing with the prospect of starting all over again, and our wonderful narrator who's questioning her life choices.

This is a satirical, funny, and witty outlook of growing up and growing old.

Our narrator stays nameless until roughly half way through (husband however never graduates to a name). We meet our lovely narrator on the morning of her 46th birthday where she's feeling invisible and unheard by her family and starts to wonder about she got to this point in her life where her kids hate her and husband seems to love his ipad more than her.

Each person we meet feels real and are people we all know and meet throughout our lives; over-the-top yummy mummies at the school gates, mental friends who love wine and chocolate just as much as you, and family who you don't want to deal with.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. It's funny and lighthearted and is real to life, nothing is romanticised - a true to life read of growing older.

Thank you to Netgalley and Welbeck publishing for an advanced copy. I highly recommend if you fancy a bit of a laugh.

So astutely observed, hilariously funny, but also full of drama and pathos. This is for anyone who has ever been in love and/or married. I read it in one greedy sitting. Simply brilliant!

Thankyou to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read this ARC.
This is my first title by this author and i will be reading more from them in the future.
I did enjoy this book, my favourite genre is Psychological thrillers so this was a different genre for me.
I did find myself laughing out loud a couple times in this book and did enjoy it.

Thanks 3/5 stars

I'm torn when it comes to "Have You Got Anything Stronger?" by Imogen Edwards Jones. As a general rule, I think there should be way more stories about women after 40 that are uplifting and prove that age is just a number and doesn't signify one's maturity and readiness to face the life's obstacles. But humour in this story just wasn't funny, it was almost like the author was trying too hard to insert as many "witty" comebacks that at times felt simply insensitive, and some of them were based on the stereotype that it's typical for women to compete with and scoff at those females who aren't in their closest circle. There was very little to like the characters for and even less to hold on to, when it comes to understanding their motivations.

I liked this book. I enjoyed the characters and they were all different to each other. The friendship in the book is a huge part which I enjoyed reading how they were there for one another and helped each other through good and bad. Although I do wish the main characters husband had a name. I didn’t see why he was named husband instead of a name it was distracting. However I found this funny, cringe yet in a good way! I felt towards the end it rushed past an important part of the storyline and I felt this couldn’t be developed more. I look forward to reading more from Imogen

Thanks goes to net galley and the publishers for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for Imogen for writing it.

⭐️/5

Brace yourself for a pretty harsh review.

Have You Got Anything Stronger focuses on the lives of a group of middle aged women living in London, each tackling their own problems, including affairs, health scares, menopause, and general disdain for life.

I honestly don’t have much to say about this book as basically nothing happens. I was hoping for and expecting an easy, laugh out loud comedy, but that was not what I got. For almost the whole book you hear the protagonist complain about her disappointing marriage to a husband who doesn’t seem to care about her and children who think she’s boring and useless. However, while she complains for pages on end, she doesn’t even think about doing the simple act of talking to her husband to try and solve the problems in their marriage. It is not until the final 20 pages when something actually happens that she actually begins to appreciate what she has, but even this aspect is done pretty poorly.
The rest of the characters weren’t much better, partially due to a lack of proper characterisation beyond “what’s going wrong in this 40-something year old’s life?” There were also those that were seen to be the enemy but they were unnecessary caricatures (skinny, blonde, wealthy mums with modern houses etc). Honestly none of the characters were even slightly likeable or relatable, and I didn’t care for any of their outcomes, especially as, like I said, for 90% of the book, absolutely nothing interesting happens.
Another point to add is that this story is set in London and not a single non-white character is even mentioned (except for a few insensitive and entirely unnecessary comparisons to mujahideen and Costa Rican tribes). This just baffled me by itself.

Unfortunately, I would not recommend this to anyone.

Have you got Anything Stronger by Imogen Edwards-Jones is a story of modern everyday life for a group of forty something women wondering how they’ve ended up in their mundane lives. Troubled marriages, affairs, divorce and the disapproval of the yummy mummies at the school gates are par for the course here with the odd mid life crises thrown in for good measure. This all comes to a head when a serious accident takes place bringing everything to a head and making everyone concerned take stock of their lives. Is where they’ve ended up so bad after all? This book is a lighthearted and fun take on the ups and downs of adulting and was, to me reminiscent of the tv series Cold Feet.

Thanks to Netgalley for this advanced reader copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This is a humorous, easy to read book- it would make great summer holiday reading. The characters are reminiscent of people we all know and the story is relatable.

Harsh Realities..
Four best friends, one year, a frantic dose of harsh reality. It’s time to question everything you’ve ever known and everyone you’ve ever known and ask yourself why. Why indeed! A smart and sassy social and domestic satire where everyone and everything is way too cringingly relatable but luckily also very funny indeed. A welcome blast of fresh air.

Loved this book, had lost my reading mojo until this. Extremely funny, A laugh out loud book, realistically funny if you are a parent and feeling the strain. Take a rest, have a cuppa and enjoy.

I couldn’t quite get my head around how I felt about this novel. I understand that it’s a rose coloured glasses, no holds barred look at the realities of long term marriage and family life but I couldn’t help but feel that, especially the main character, well hated their lives. It took until 3/4 of the way through the book for the main character to even acknowledge she had any positive feelings toward her kids or husband. The friends seem to talk about each other in passive aggressive disdain.
I much preferred the ending of the book although I felt that was rushed and should have come sooner as that would have made the characters and the plot much more likeable.
The book was well written don’t get me wrong and I thought it was witty in some parts. I just felt myself wanting more and once I did get my teeth into it then it ended.

Such a relatable story for any approaching-middle-age woman, trying to manage the demands of family, work, relationships and health issues whilst still trying to hold onto being a person in their own right. Laugh out loud funny and sometimes cringe worthy, overall a good read.

I suspect ,for anatomical reasons. that I'm a very long way from the target readership of Imogen Edwards-Jones book, Have You Got Anything Stronger ? but it's one of the funniest books I've read for a long time.. It follows the lives of 4 women ,a diverse group of long-term friends,as they approach the joys of middle age. Our mostly anonymous ,until all is revealed at the end, narrator is stuck in a stale marriage with what appear to be the offspring from hell ,so pretty much the average British family then. The book starts with her not sure whether she's pregnant or menopausal, just 2 of the subjects addressed in great detail in a way that that me laughing out loud and cringing at the same time.
My overall feeling as the very entertaining story unfolded was that Mike Leigh should make the movie as the cast of,often borderline caricature, mostly relatable characters tackle class,body image ,sex,, all kinds of relationships, and much,much more,the book is just made to adapted to the big,or small,screen in his inimitable way..
The writing style is very much "in your face", literally in a couple of scenes that are very funny but.like many other parts of the book,not repeatable here There's plenty of "language" and what some might regard as "too much detail" on subjects that used to be described as "not discussed in polite company" . For those of a less sensitive disposition it's very funny,often moving ,well observed and frequently hilariously outrageous.

Welcome Back Imogen! What a fantastic novel. Incredibly realistic characters (purely because you can see yourself/friends in them immediately), frustrations, the fear of missing out on better things and so much more. Loved it.

Have you ever spent so long waiting for your life to start, only to realise it's been going on under your nose the entire time? And now, when you look around at it, you wonder if this is really it for you? Is this as good as it's gonna get?

For four best friends, these are questions they've been asking themselves a lot lately. So join us as we navigate a year of their complicated, messy lives and try to figure out love, parenthood, relationships, careers and everything else that comes with being an adult. And if they can't figure it out, there's always wine.
"Where did it all go? The youth? the joy? The firm skin? The fresh face? The spring in my step? The mirth in my laugh? The hours in my sleep? Why does everything now seem so flat and difficult? I know we're supposed to be a long time dead, but I had no idea you could feel just that, while still being bloody alive."

Sharp, smart and satirical - this playful exploration into growing up and growing old is full of witty observational humour about the utter absurdity of modern life.

Set in just under a year, we follow the lives of our characters; Sally, whose kids may be actual demons and is starting to think a mild concussion sounds like a spa day. There's Kate who's working her ass off to maintain her perfectly together influencer image and her demanding career. Claire, who is trying to navigate the possibility of starting all over again after a divorce. And of course, our narrator dealing with her unrelenting family and feeling as though she's going invisible. Our wonderful narrator remains nameless and faceless until the very end - allowing us to behold her in all her messy glory and put ourselves right into her shoes. Every single person we meet is somehow both wonderfully real and nightmarishly over-the-top all at once, like caricatures of some of our worst fears but I loved meeting them all.

This is very much less of a set narrative and more of taking a lens to the reality of being a middle-aged woman and the bullshit they're expected to deal with, showing us what life can be like and giving us some good old fashioned catharsis. We move through the months easily, like life passing us by, and much like life things have changed before they've even realised it.

Deeply relatable and dryly funny, this will resonate with anyone who has ever felt like a background character in their own story - someone that life just happens to. We delve into double standards, unpaid mental labour, body hair, menopause, bad sex and good sex - all the things we aren't meant to talk about let alone complain about.

HYGAS guarantees some laughs but a few tears too as we go through this wickedly clever story about the ridiculousness of being a woman in a mans world.

OMG one of he funniest books I've read laugh out loud it's so true to form of mundane life but so True an exsacly how life is now in the 20th century