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REVIEW: Have You Got Anything Stronger by Imogen Jones



Genre: Adult Fiction | Satire & Humour

Release Date: Expected 30th March 2023

Publisher: Welbeck Publishing UK

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.


⭐⭐⭐⭐


I was gifted an advanced reviewers copy of this title in return for an honest review.

cw: cosmetic surgery, pregnancy, divorce, swearing, drinking, smoking, infidelity, illness, miscarriage, hospitals, injury. 

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