I thoroughly enjoyed this honest memoir from my favourite author Amanda Prowse, and after reading this, I truly believe she may have been writing about my own life. So much of it resonated with me from her addictive behaviours concerning food, alcohol, weight issues and just wanting to be noticed and liked in her teens, right through to her lack of self-worth, feeling unlovable and hating herself and her body.

Oh my goodness Mandy, you made me sob at times (particularly the instances of sexually inappropriate behaviours in the office in the 1980's, and reminded me of the near-miss sexual assault I couldn't mention at the time and have not done so until now) because of feeling it was probably my fault! I know better now.

You made me feel warm and cosy hearing about your Grandparents' home-grown love when they took you in, supplying wisdom, warmth, healing, love and laughter with no judgement.

You made me laugh with your Walrus Roll, not really funny I know, but you did make me chuckle.

My final thoughts on this wonderful book : I also had a moment in my childhood (are you sure this book isn't about me) where someone made a throwaway comment about the way I walk with a limp, they only said it once, but I have probably said it to myself most days ever since. What you have taught me is that firstly we wouldn't speak to a friend the way we speak to ourselves through our internal dialogue, so let's be as kind to ourselves as we are to others too. We should go gently through this wonderful life, try to spend a few moments each day calmly, with peace in our homes and hearts, and appreciate family, health and the feeling of well-being.

A well written and thought provoking memoir that I suspect will resonate with many. Prowse, whose fiction is delightful, has lived a difficult and often painful - both physically and psychologically-life. She doesn't pull punches but she also doesn't wallow or feel sorry for herself. I honestly wasn't expecting what I found within these pages but now I'm going to read her novels with a different eye. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. Great read.

Amanda Prowse is such a well known author so when I saw this book on netgalley read now section, I had to get it! My initial hope for this book was that it would give me some insight into how she got into writing as I’m fascinated by how authors come up with so many fantastic ideas and how they are disciplined enough to write it all out.

Amanda talks about how a teacher reacted negatively to her expressing she would like to write and I love that, even though she has held onto it, she doesn’t seem to be bitter, just matter of fact knowing what she has now achieved.

She has had to deal with a lot throughout her life, but one of the biggest things she’s talks about is her relationship with food and her body and how she has overcome it. Although I felt some of this could have been condensed a little (I skipped a few pages) i do believe this may help a lot of people who could relate to her and for that reason I would definitely recommend it.

Fascinating autobiography.
Many thanks to Amazon Publishing UK and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is a very honest autobiography from a very genuine and lovely person. I had never read ner books but while reading this I did for the first time and can see that that open and caring style comes across in her fiction also. I believe she is a TV personality and I can see why - she comes across so open and honest I envy anyone who has her as a friend. A lovely read if you don't know her or her work but must be a particular treat for her fans. Highly recommend!

Amanda is one of my favourite authors & I can’t recommend this book highly enough! I loved reading her story. Such a lovely lady.

Oh my goodness, I loved Amanda Prowse before reading this, and now I’m in awe even more now I have read her own story!
Such a strong woman! Her emotional based books show how emphatic she is and now I can see why. Brutally honest, you can imagine how she can create the family dramas by looking at her own life.
So uplifting too, you really feel that you have had a glimpse of her and understand her processes with her writing.
Just amazing

Amanda’s professional career as a writer has been achieved only in the last decade. Yet the millions of copies sold, the titles she has published, the stories she has shared… feel like they’ve been around forever. Her memoir brings her writing life, trials and celebrations, together in the pages of one book. But it also brings something else. Amanda’s lifetime to date.

You may think you know Amanda from the stories that she writes, because of the realities that she chooses to write into fiction, often inspired by her own experiences. You may think that you know Amanda because of the memoir that she co-wrote with her son, a beautiful, honest book, that has helped so many people. These are only fractions of Amanda Prowse, though, and this book… this book is everything else. Everything in between. The anguish behind that beautiful smile, the fear behind those wonderfully written words. Everything that hides behind the brave expression is laid bare in this book and you will laugh. And you will cry. And, at points, maybe one or maybe a hundred, you’ll say, ‘Me too.’

There are pieces of thousands of us within the pages of Amanda’s book, but never has someone so honestly and openly written them all down like this. It’s raw, it’s real and it is emotional. It is a woman, like us.

“How did someone I’d never met know what I was feeling? Because that was what these stories did: they made me feel.”

⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️ This…this…1,000 times this! This is what I love about Amanda Prowse’s fiction, and now she has written her memoir and I feel like we would be besties if we lived on the same continent.😊 Had we met in a library as children, I imagine us sitting on a beanbag together, nearly the same age, absorbed in our stories, not saying a word, but bonded for life over our love of books.

Amanda’s story is heartbreaking and honest and brave and uplifting and makes me want to be better for myself. She offers up her lifelong journey here, and I have to be honest, it took me a couple of weeks to get through it. It made me reflect on my own struggles. Sometimes it was hard—really hard—and I couldn’t bring myself to keep reading. I needed a break to really appreciate what I felt.

Even after I finished, I needed a couple of days to process it all. I normally jump right into my next book, and I didn’t open another one for a couple of days. (I know that may not sound like a long time, but for a reader, two days is an eternity.)

This memoir doesn’t hide anything, doesn’t sugar-coat. Amanda has put her whole self out there for her readers. I know now why she’s able to describe true grief so well like she did for Merrin in To Love and Be Loved. I understand how she made me feel the panic of something bad happening to a child in The Game. I can see how she so realistically captured Jacks’ feelings that life might have been different if she had made different choices in Perfect Daughter. (All books you should read, by the way.)

Amanda experienced all of it. It wasn’t exactly how she wrote the stories, obviously, but the emotions behind the experiences have fed her stories for years. And that’s how she’s able to make her readers feel so profoundly. I imagine every one of her books has been cathartic for her because the things she has experienced in her life…whew…I can’t even imagine.

She even graces us with her own self-esteem challenges. So many women (men too, but more women) struggle with their self-worth, defining themselves by how they think other people view them. Read that again…how they think other people view them. And Amanda made me think about how I feel about myself and my own challenges in this very moment.

Like Amanda, I have always loved to write. Like Amanda, I once thought I would love to write a book. But as much as I think it would be cool to write for a living, I know that I don’t want to spend my days writing novels. I write about myself in blog posts. People get snippets of me. But it took me two years from the time I decided I wanted to start a blog to actually start the blog. I am not a novelist.

Amanda is a novelist…and now she is a memoir-ist. And I am so grateful for it. She has lived such an incredible life. This book will save someone’s life. I know it.

She says, “Sometimes, the hardest and bravest thing we can do is remain upright when every fibre of our being is pulling us down.”

Thank you, Amanda, for remaining upright…and for sharing with a world full of strangers everything that tried to pull you down.

It was great to have an insight to Amanda’s life which confirms we are all different but have so many things in common as women. I have read Amanda Prowse novels and this book was equally as good. I think many women will engage with topics that are covered in this book. A great read!
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review.

As a woman of similar age this rang so many bells with me, it's rare to read a memoir so life affirming.

Beautifully written, this is a book for fans of Amanda Prowse or those yet to read one of her novels. Anyone who has battled body image, eating difficulties, self esteem problems, and there can't be many of us that haven't, will get something out of this, including a sense of recognition.

Highly recommended.

Received as an advanced copy from NetGalley to read. Thank you.

I feel like this memoir (mostly) could have been written about me. Constantly worrying about weight is something I found heartbreakingly relatable. I found it touching to be able to share this journey with Amanda and her family. It really is a heart wrenching look into the world of eating disorders, pain, and everything else in between. Must read for anyone who is a fan of memoirs. Amanda’s words will resonate for a long time after you read the last page.

What a truly wonderful, heartbreaking, emotional, life affirming, funny and truly soul bearing book from one of my favourite authors! I only found Amanda Prowse in 2015 and since then have devoured every single book of hers as soon as they are published. She writes with such insight into normal lives dealing with extraordinary situations that I was intrigued to see how her autobiography fared, it certainly did not disappoint. Mrs Prowse is only a year older than me and her life and mine have some similarities, although I do not have her gift of words! This book only served to cement that I think she has a camera peering into my mind! The book was amusing and heartbreaking, sometimes in the same sentence but I could not put it down. It had me crying with sadness and crying with happiness, so I suggest anyone of a similar age keeps the tissues handy!

After every book of hers I read, I wonder how she is going to top it and I really don’t know how she will top this wonderful window into her life.

When I think of women'sfiction, I think of books just like this one, that gives all the feels and satisfies every book junkies' heart. This is a perfect book to snuggle up with on any day.

In what had to be a giant leap of faith, Amanda Prowse gives us a complete window into her life. In her memoir she gives us all a compete look at the bare bones, from her early struggles with insecurity, of not being enough and her ongoing health issues that went undiscovered for years and then took years to repair and correct. An open and honest account, the good, the bad and the ugly.


As always, many thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review

Loved this, getting to know the person behind the many much loved novels I have enjoyed over the years. I know a fair bit about Amanda Prowse, having been such an avid fan for so long, but to read about her childhood, her family & upbringing, just puts the jigsaw together and a wonderful insight into what makes her who she is! I found it sad at times, what she had to go through and what she suffered in terms of her self esteem, mostly brought on by the media and how she sees herself. I hope she knows how much of a truly wonderful person she is, how special and caring. She really is a ‘what you see is what you get’ person and you can’t help but love her for it! Keep doing what you do, you make the world a nicer place knowing we have the escapism of your books :)

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for approving me for this arc.

It was really interesting to read about this womens life and the stories and lessens she chooses to share with the world!

Every self-conscious, self-doubting woman should read this book.
Within a few pages I recognised myself in Amanda Prowse’s story, and the title ‘Woman like Us’ made absolute sense. An open and honest account of a fifty-somethings life; the marvellously mundane, the love, the pain, the passion and the self-sabotage. Her journey to self-acceptance is inspiring, her exhortation to ‘trust the process’ one I hope to follow. #WLU

Wow what a woman! I just love Amanda prowse novels and this insight to the incredible lady was fantastic!

I really enjoyed this book, I enjoy a lot of Amanda Prowse writing so knew I would enjoy this read. Thank you so much