This is a memoir which is written so well. It is so inspiring.
Please be careful picking this up if you are in a mental health crisis as it may be triggering

Nothing Will Be Different is an honest coming of age memoir in which Tara McGowan-Ross details her journey from frantic party girl to finally settling and finding some peace within herself.

Tara is quite frank and blunt and doesn't shy away from discussing her struggles, mistakes and flaws. She takes the reader along her journey of reawakening as she faces her battles head on and finds a new found level of happiness.

The timeline does jump around quite a bit, scenes from her childhood chop to current day and then back again to a forestry in Canada so at times I did feel a bit lost and disconnected from her story.

I didn't love or hate it but an interesting and honest look at a 20 something finding her way.

TWs: Alcoholism, Cancer, Eating Disorders, Death of a Parent, Grief

I appreciated the details of the author's struggles with staying sober and monogamous and then dealing with her health crisis. I did feel like it went a little slowly for my tastes. I enjoyed the peeks into Canadian/Monreal culture a lot.

Tara is in her mid twenties when a major health scare causes her to reexamine her life and the decisions she has made to get her to where she is.

This is the first memoir I've read (at least that I can remember) where the author is close in age to me. As I was reading her story, the timelines of different events lined up with timelines in my own life. When she was in high school, I was in high school. When she was studying at Concordia, I was at university in Ottawa. This timeline match up really drew me into this book.

It's an interesting tale, split into chapters that can be read standalone, or together, depicting the difficult beginning of a young Canadian. It's not all told in chronological order (though the chapters are well marked with dates) and I found myself flipping between chapters to better understand where different parts of the story fit together.

I particularly enjoyed learning more about each of the Canadian cities she lives and visited throughout the memoir.

3.5 stars rounded to 4.

Wow what a read! A neurotic party girl's coming-of-age memoir about learning to live before getting ready to die.

Tara has it pretty good: a nice job, a writing career, a forgiving boyfriend. She should be happy. Yet Tara can’t stay sober. She’s terrible at monogamy. Even her psychiatrist grows sick of her and stops returning her calls. She spends most of her time putting out social fires, barely pulling things off, and feeling sick and tired.

Then, in the autumn following her twenty-seventh birthday, an abnormal lump discovered in her left breast serves as the catalyst for a journey of rigorous self-questioning. Waiting on a diagnosis, she begins an intellectual assessment of her life, desperate to justify a short existence full of dumb choices. Armed with her philosophy degree and angry determination, she attacks each issue in her life as the days creep by and winds up writing a searingly honest memoir about learning to live before getting ready to die.

I found this hard to follow at first but I soon got used to the narrative rhythm and really enjoyed Tara's writing. Her story is very honest and vulnerable which makes for difficult reading at times but you also can't help but feel a connection with her story.

An interesting read about a young Canadian woman grappling with a major health issue. Her memoir details,how she works through the revelation and examines her life. She shares many details with readers, intimate imfor,action. She fills in her back story so readers can find connections with her experiences.

This memoir was breathtaking, deep, and thought-provoking. The author's insight is incredible, and I'm thankful that she released this book.

I love these types of books. I find them so inspiring
Premise
Tara has it pretty good: a nice job, a writing career, a forgiving boyfriend. She should be happy. Yet Tara can’t stay sober. She’s terrible at monogamy. Even her psychiatrist grows sick of her and stops returning her calls. She spends most of her time putting out social fires, barely pulling things off, and feeling sick and tired.

Then, in the autumn following her twenty-seventh birthday, an abnormal lump discovered in her left breast serves as the catalyst for a journey of rigorous self-questioning.

It was interesting following Tara on her journey from party girl to having her life flipped completely upside down without notice. As someone dealing with chronic health issues and not knowing from day to day what your life will look like I found a lot of inspiration and relatability in Taras story and I think readers will too!