The Rebel Poetess

One Day, David Nicholls, Hodder, 2010 At its heart One Day is a love story but there is so much more to it than that.   Emma and Dexter meet on St Swithin’s Day – 15th July- 1988 at University.   Full of hopes and dreams, with the rest of their lives ahead of them, they put the world to rights on the night they meet; their graduation.   Their paths in life could not be more different after this day, yet they always converge again on this one day of each year.    Dexter achieves a level of celebrity and all the clichés that come with it – sex, drugs and rock and roll.   Emma spends her first years after graduation making ends meet in jobs which pay the bills, her life could not be more different from Dexter’s and yet their worlds collide each year on this one day. I fell in love with both characters; Emma’s feistiness was a delight and I loved seeing her trajectory as she truly blossomed in life and shone as brightly as any star.   Although Dexter’s character wasn’t likeab

The Boy who Fell To Earth, Kathy Lette, Black Swan 2013. Lucy has a very important man in her life, her autistic son, Merlin.  Merlin’s Father Jeremy abandoned them when Merlin was very young, claiming he couldn’t handle Merlin’s condition.  After years on her own, and a series of dates which don’t go according to plan, the perfect man, Archie, lands on her doorstep.  Okay he swears, he makes constant innuendoes, but he has a huge heart.  And most importantly, he gets Merlin.  Just when life seems as though it couldn’t get any better, Jeremy makes an unexpected return, pleading forgiveness. Kathy Lette has explained she didn’t have to look far for her inspiration for The Boy Who Fell To Earth as her son has Asperger’s.  This is apparent in Merlin’s character and some of his utterings make for a hilarious yet touching read.  Jeremy claims to have had a change of heart, wanting to do everything he can to make hers and Merlin’s lives easier.  Following Jeremy’s father’s death, his M

I’m going to put my hands up and confess I didn’t read this book when it first came out, due to bad reviews.   Actually, I got it from my local library - definitely saves me £££ on my reading habit! – read a few pages, put it down and forgot about it for a while. Now I have to tell you the reason the reviews put me off.   Having read Moran’s iconic How to Be a Woman and discovering a book that was actually my bible.   Anyone who wants to understand me just has to read that book.   The reviews gave the impression that this was pretty much a fictional copy of How to Be a Woman, at first I didn’t see the point of reading what many critics had lambasted as a copy of a copy. Curiosity got the better of me though, and I am so glad it did!   Having grown up in West Somerset, always dreaming of escaping from a small town where everyone knows your name and your business – not always a good thing – I could totally relate to Caitlin Moran’s fictionalized version of herself; Johanna Morr

I attended a mindfulness session at work yesterday, as part of World Mental Health Day.   One focal point was how our current world is at such a frantic pace.   We rarely take time to stop and just be.   I used to live life at a million miles a minute.  Fast paced workouts. Fast paced pacing around. My ex-boyfriend always wanted to eat while watching TV . I like films, but I like to focus on my food, to have a conversation over dinner. To talk about your day.  He used to put his hand up to silence me if I spoke while we were eating. I used to laugh it off, but now I see how condescending that was. You can practice mindfulness in many different ways. One of these is The Body Scan, see below  The Body Scan, by Jon Kabat Zinn This really helped me when I was in the grip of severe depression and anxiety.  His book,  Full Catastrophe Living, recommended to me by  a fellow Depression Warrior and all round awesome person,  really saved me in the darkest hour. I used to hate

So You’ve been Publicly Shamed, Jon Ronson, Picador 2015. Public shaming is not a new concept.   This is an act which has gone on for hundreds of years, but it is in recent years, partly due to social media, that it has brought increasing levels of vitriol.   For his research, Jon Ronson travelled the country for three years, meeting people who had been publicly shamed, and shows a great deal of sensitivity and understanding of his subjects.   This is hardly surprising, as Ronson has been publicly shamed too. When Ronson realized somebody was tweeting as him, he contacted them to ask them to take the Twitter account down.   At first, they refused to do so, eventually met up, and due to pressure from others, the page was eventually taken down.   A particularly interesting part of the book was when Ronson spoke to Max Mosley, who the News of the World suggested had been part of a Nazi themed sex party.   The facts emerged that although there was an S&M element to proceeding

Hey guys, just sharing some links to my YouTube videos.  Check em out! The Rebel Poetess First Vlog How To Get a Bikini Body The Rebel Poetess reads her [poem 'Daddy's Girl'

Hello.  How are you doing?  I'm goooood.  A little deprived of the D, but ya know #firstworldproblems. My ex-Boyfriend was obsessed with size. The size of his bank balance(and mine.)  The size of the food packets, from the ridiculously large food packages we used to get from Costco(he used to call himself a Butcher cutting up our supply of meat; ironic seeing that he butchered my heart for a time.) But he was most preoccupied with the size of his dick.  Are most guys?  Just like girls are obsessed with the size of their boobs.  I know I am.  Because as I've said before, one element of sex is biology.  We are pre-programmed to want to find a mate, to be attracted to the pheromones of others, to procreate. But it's when we deviate from these desires that things can get a little fucked up.  People cheat, they have affairs, they act in the heat of the moment, and the consequences have repercussions; a domino effect on the lives of those they were drawn to.