Good Evening All,

I hope that you’re all keeping healthy and safe. What a strange time we are all living in. Thankfully, the impact to my everyday life is minimal as I work from home anyway but I am lucky. I know there are thousands upon thousands of people who are completely outside of their comfort zones right now. The thing we do all have is our books and I hope you are all finding comfort and solace in being able to escape in stories.

Book 📖

I can’t tell you how excited I was to receive this in the post; my very first physical copy proof. Thank you so much to @girl_on_a_ledge, @HarperCollinsUK and @HappyMrsH for this copy in return for an honest review. 

My Pear-Shaped Life is available for purchase on kindle now or you can preorder a hardback copy here. This is due to be published in hardback on 16th April 2020.

Description 🔖

Greta Gale has always been the big girl who makes jokes; whether at her own expense or otherwise. Her family are all in on these jokes, but what they don’t know is how much pain it causes Greta and the lengths that she will go to to numb that pain. 

Everything goes very pear-shaped in Greta’s life but on the other side, she goes on a once in a lifetime trip to Vegas with her uncle and starts to discover who Greta Gale is and fall in love with herself. It turns out that her size does not define her and she can find happiness regardless of her dress size.

General Thoughts 🤔

I didn’t quite expect this book to get me quite as emotional as it did. I was expecting some giggles, a little sadness and some feel good factors. But this book hit me so much deeper and I was extremely pleasantly surprised. There are some pretty dark moments in this book, just like there a dark moments in Greta’s life and it really struck a chord with me. 

I don’t think any of us can truly say we have always loved every single part of ourselves. Everyone has their insecurities and self doubts, but for some people it is all consuming and life changing and it really made me think about what I would do if those niggling thoughts I had about myself once or twice a day were fifty or a hundred times a day. 

Characters 👫👭👬

This book is full of relatable characters and there’s a real sense of family normalcy amongst the Gale family. It’s not all flowers and walks in the park, there are real family problems along with real family happiness. 

Uncle Ray was my favourite character. I feel like everyone needs an Uncle Ray in their life. His love and care for his niece is beautiful. He too suffers with his own self worth and is on his own journey to find peace in his pear-shaped life. 

Writing Style ✍🏽

I loved that the author found such a way to warm my heart even when everything wasn’t perfect. Everyone loves a happy ending and a romantic one and although this book doesn’t have an unhappy ending, I didn’t think it had the happy ending that one might expect. 

Although the majority of the book is written from Greta’s perspective, there are little moments in the book where the reader gets a little insight into the thoughts and feelings of the other characters and I thought this was such a nice touch to bring the reader closer to those characters. 

I can’t not mention the references to The Wizard of Oz. I loved them all and they played into the story so well. 

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

I was surprised by this book and not at all disappointed by that. I went through feelings of happiness, empathy, sadness and elation and all the way back around again. Such a beautiful story about beautiful characters. Everyone who has ever fell out of love with themselves should read this book and remind themselves that you can always mend your relationship with yourself. 

😍😍😍😍😫