I've found with other Dawn O'Porter novels that her characters aren't fleshed out very well and it's still the case in this novel. I’ll admit I initially found the quips about being a ‘cat lady’ and her intense pet relationship a bit odd, but once her back story starts to be told I completely understood the premise and the MC far better. I am not an expert in anything, but just a person with access to the internet who is trying to learn and make sense of the world! The author incorporated some really funny things - the itching, the references to a marshmallow and I’ll certainly never look at a sharpie in the same way.

Dawn is the bestselling author of the novels The Cows and the Richard and Judy Book Club pick So Lucky, and her non-fiction title Life in Pieces was also a Sunday Times bestseller. I haven't read a non-fictional book in years and somehow when I saw this book I decided to take the plunge not knowing if I was actually going to follow through and read it. She has made thirteen documentaries about all sorts of things, including polygamy, childbirth, geishas, body image, breast cancer and even the movie DIRTY DANCING. I did find Mia quite relatable in some aspects (however, some things she did truly had me cringing and feeling disgusted).I loved laughing with/at some of the characters and I was emotionally destroyed* as I watched some of the characters' lives unravel. I think a lot of people worry about something happening to their fur babies, which obviously Mia really struggles with that.

But behind the label – the one that only sticks to women – what if there’s a story worth nine lives? Sometimes however having it 'all' isn't all it's cracked to be - having to put up with her husband's ex-wife who spends way too much time at their house. In contrast to this though, others just outright disturbed me, the main being (creepy babe guy) who had a questionable understanding of what consent was at the best of times and was just straight weird. I have to say I didn’t particularly like any of the characters – so I wasn’t Team Mia – but equally wasn’t Team Anyone Else. Dawn O’Porter is the bestselling author of ‘The Cows’ and the Richard and Judy Book Club pick ‘So Lucky’ and her latest non-fiction title ‘Life in Pieces’ was also a Sunday Times bestseller.

Mia is a good wife to husband Tristan, a genuinely loving and caring step-mum to his kids by his last marriage, and very good at her job. Dawn's journalism has appeared in multiple publications and she was the monthly columnist for Glamour magazine.

With thanks to Netgalley,Dawn O’Porter and HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction for my chance to read and review this book. Some of the characters in this book were truly unlikeable and I absolutely despised them, such as Tristan (Mia's husband), Belinda (Tristan's ex wife) and Tristan and Belinda's circle of friends. There were so many instances when reading when I was simply teetering between cringe, disbelief, and also shock at the standard of publishing. I was gifted this by Harper Fiction and Tandem Collective UK, but will not be tagging due to the negative nature of this review. Nothing much happens in the first half, there’s a bit of awkward social commentary, and Mia reinforces every stereotype about people who love cats.Leaving aside some really explicit stuff just thrown in there for shock value (at one point early on I was very worried that this woman was going to sexually abuse her cat), it's a story about a woman who has quite a tough, lonely upbringing who feels like she needs to conform to certain standards.