CHICK LIT

HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW?

(Hodder £12.99) I adored this expose of how terrible it is to feel like you’re failing compared to your peers.

The social pressure to have a ring on your finger, a bun in the oven or a promotion is unbearable when all your friends are not only ticking these boxes, but then relentlessly posting about them on social media.

This is bad enough for the ordinary girl, but for protagonist Tori Bailey, it’s a million times worse. not only has she written a bestselling book about how to have it all, but she gives sold-out lectures to huge audiences who all want what she’s got.

She maintains her successful facade, pretending to have all the answers, but the truth is that her life is spiralling out of control and, inside, she’s a mess.

Hilarious and heartbreaking, this made me wince and cheer.

LOVE WILL TEAR US APART by Holly Seddon

(Corvus £12.99) WHen Kate and Paul meet as children, they quickly become best friends. In fact, for a long time, they are each other’s only friend.

Fearing they might never form relationships with anyone else, they vow that if they’re both still single at 30, they will marry each other.

When the fateful deadline nears, they are living together platonically and Kate is not in a great mental space. Paul proposes and Kate accepts — after all, who knows her better than he does? She tells herself this is a perfectly acceptable basis for a marriage.

Ten years and two children later, however, and something is wrong. The narrative flips between their pasts and the present, where they are resentful and barely communicating.

It’s an emotionally intelligent portrait of a relationship.

GRACE AFTER HENRY by Eithne Shortall

(Corvus £12.99) PreTTY much everywhere she goes, Grace sees Henry. Or, at least, she thinks she does, until she remembers that he’s dead . . . All this is, of course, a manifestation of her devastating grief — but then Henry turns up to fix her boiler and Grace believes she’s finally lost her grip.

eventually, she realises the man in front of her is uncannily like her dead love, but not him.

It turns out Andy is Henry’s fraternal twin, adopted when they were babies. Andy always knew he had a brother; Henry didn’t and nor did Grace — who is beyond confused.

It’s a moving exploration of what it means to lose your love, whether they can be replaced and if it’s wise to try to recreate what you once had.