Review: Confessions of a Forty Something F**k Up by Alexandra Potter

Nell Stevens’ life is a mess.

When her business goes bust and her fiancé with it, Nell’s happy ever after in California falls apart and she moves back to London to start over. But a lot has changed since she’s been gone. All her single friends are now married with children, sky-high rents force her to rent a room in a stranger’s house and in a world of perfect Instagram lives, she feels like a f**k up. Even worse, a forty-something f**k up.

But when she lands a job writing obituaries, Nell meets the fabulous Cricket, an eighty-something widow with challenges of her own, and they strike up an unlikely friendship. Together they begin to help each other heal their aching hearts, cope with the loss of the lives they had planned, and push each other into new adventures and unexpected joys.

Because Nell is determined. Next year things are going to be very different. It’s time to turn her life around.

Review: I may not quite be a forty something yet but this is 100% the book I needed to read right now. I loved the humour and warmth as well as the realness of this book. This book, through main character Nell, shows you that nobody has it all together and that you can be a f**k up but still be living your best life the way you want to live it. 

I could just related to Nell from the word go in this book. I could both sympathise and empathise with her and I loved getting to know her over the course of the book. We've all had instances of having to start over in one way or another whether that's just a small thing that you've been working on or a whole big life move and Nell expresses the feelings we have about it but are too scared to share. I love knowing what's going on in side her head and all the rubbish that she has to wade through in order to just carry on living her life. 

This book deals with all the FOMO we have from seeing our friends' lives on whatever social media we choose to peruse and the feelings that we haven't quite met the expectations we believe society has placed on us but we've actually kind of placed them on ourselves. I loved the outer London setting of this book and just how ridiculous it is to try and find somewhere to live in the city, even when you're a forty something! I also really love the fact that this book delves apologetically into non traditional media and the power that has. I love when an author bucks the trend and has podcasts and dating apps in their books!

There are a couple of care warnings that come with this book in terms of baby loss and also traffic accidents. I did have to skip a couple of chapters myself but I was able to pick back up in Nell's life where I left off. I laughed out loud several times in this book, had a little cry and just nodded a long the whole way through. I really thought this book was amazing and I am sure you will too. 

To order your copy now, just click the link: UK or US