How Do You Like Me Now?, Holly Bourne
I wouldn’t have read this book had it not been for the fortuitous forces of listening to Holly Bourne on Alice-Azania Jarvis’s newish books podcast, The Sunday Salon, and then seeing it the next day on a friend’s shelf. Holly seemed so warm, Tigger-ish perhaps, and wise for such a young and successful writer. I always wonder how people become professional and mature in their outlook when they reach the age of consent instead of bumbling along in general idiocy for another decade, and the book sounded like a lot of fun. Also Holly is obviously very popular on social media and as a general misanthrope I was keen to read a book by a joyful and positive person.
It’s a sharp and page-turning portrait of a woman who everyone thinks has her shit together, but hasn’t, not really at all, even though she has a huge social media following all keyed into her flippant life guru character, a character she is struggling to maintain.
As the lines between our own experience of real life and relationships and their online counterparts become trickier to navigate, this is a frank and funny way to look at how we can keep a handle on ourselves, and one hand on the many hats we have to wear.