Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up: The Funniest WTF AM I DOING? Novel of the Year (Confessions, 1)

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I’ve had that title in my head since my late thirties,” says author Alexandra Potter, “when I used to moan to my friends, ‘Oh God, I’m going to be a forty-something f--- up.’ So I really fought for it!” Mothers & Childless Daughters – a very hot topic for our next free Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen webinar

Alexandra Potter is a British author, whose first novel ‘What’s New, Pussycat?’ was published in 2000, a week before her 30th birthday and immediately made the top ten. She has since written twelve novels of romantic comedy including ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’, ‘Me and Mr Darcy’ (which won Best New Fiction Award at the Jane Austen Regency World Awards) and ‘Love From Paris’ which was shortlisted for the RNA Comedy Award. No old lady hair’ should have been included in our wedding vows as my husband has made me promise this on numerous occasions. 🤣 ——‘I might be in my eighties but I’m not having a cauliflower head….That’s what my friend Una called old lady hair. At my age you have to on guard against a short curly perm.’ No Job - not my fault. Had a job. Enjoyed it. Pandemic came along. Lost job. So instead I say I'm a writer, when really I'm a failed author pleading for someone to read my book.I have read all of Alexandra Potter's wonderful novels and not one of them has disappointed. Her writing style is casual, flirty, accessible... her books are an absolute joy to read, delving into the characters' thoughts and feelings in a way that not only has the reader relating to them, but fully empathising with them. I've said it before that I'm not overly fond of books that talk about the pandemic, as I want escapism, I don't want to read about something I lived through. But Alexandra has found a balance here. She's mentioned it - as anyone would if their book is set during that time - but it's not a main plot point. It helps give context to a few things, but the story would equally be as great without it.

The book features an array of wonderful friendships. From cross generational, to long distance, to the support you find when someone has seen you at your best, and your lowest, over many years. The story of Nell Stevens’ struggle through her imperfect, messy life doesn’t just make brilliant fiction, it’s turning into a cultural revolution!' – Matt Cain Alexandra Potter is a guest for January 2021’s Nomo Book Club, hosted within the Gateway Women Online Community by Lisa Kissane, the Host of the Nomo Book Club. Come and join Lisa, Alexandra, and plenty of other forty-somethings (or fifty-somethings now in my case!) on Saturday 23rd January 2021 at 10am UK time as together we show that it’s not only in rom-com that we get to write our own endings.

Join her for more laugh-out-loud lessons to be learned,truths to be told, adventures to go on and joys to discover. All of these pressures and stigmas – aren’t many of them propagated not by men but women, though? “Women do have a competitive streak, but I think that’s in life generally, and on the contrary I have always found them to be very supportive of one another.” I will continue to read Alexandra Potter’s books, as from the 3 books I’ve read so far by her, I thinks she does a great job at capturing the trials and tribulations of women in their 40’s. In books, TV shows and films, everything is dialled up to be fantasy, the perfect wife/husband, the perfect children, the perfect house, the perfect figure, the perfect job, the perfect life. But in real life, no relationship, no friendship, no sex, no job is perfect. Whilst I'm aware this book is also a fiction and should be a fantasy, it really holds a mirror up to us as a society. It talks about the negatives of being a woman in society, making it so familiar and relatable, but shows that you don't have to be perfect to be perfect.

After thoroughly enjoying Confessions of a 40-Year-Old F***Up, I was thrilled to hear there was a sequel. I highly recommend this book, it is for every one of us, for the ‘outcasts’ like me (childfree by choice, gasp!) who try to walk life through a different path than one that is deemed acceptable, or for someone like you who may have achieved the so-called ‘milestones’ in life, is considered a ‘success’ by society but like Nell’s friends in the book may feel like a f-up nonetheless. Yet only recently have a broader selection of messy, unfiltered female characters entered the zeitgeist, primarily through our TV screens, with Phoebe Waller-Bridges’s Fleabag, Sara Pascoe’s Out of Her Mind, Katherine Ryan’s The Duchess and Lucy Prebble and Billie Piper’s I Hate Suzie all proving that it is possible for a woman to own both her flaws and failures.In this instalment, it looks like Nell has her life under control, her ship is sailing smoothly. Maybe she isn’t such a f##k up after all? Or are the wheels about to come off her wagon again? I loved the way Alexandra Potter incorporated the pandemic into the start of the novel. It was the perfect way to have Nell reevaluate herself after finding peace with her life in the first novel. It reminded me of how much our lives got completely tipped upside down thanks to COVID-19. WATCH NOW: Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen. What does it mean to be a ‘Radical Old Woman?’ [Recorded 21 June 2023] As Nell navigates the complexities of love, friendship, and self-discovery, I found myself nodding in agreement, pausing to reflect on my own life and decisions. Potter's witty prose and insightful exploration of life's messiness make for an unputdownable read that's both heartwarming and thought-provoking.