This funny, honest book bowled me over like an avalanche sliding towards a sapling. Page after page cast up more and more similarities between main character, Tori, and me in my early 20s.

I could relate to almost every beautifully-delivered line. From feeling like a fraud to watching friends get married and having kids to feeling stuck in a bad relationship.

Bourne addresses the contradictions in our lives with a painful honesty: I think winced as I recognised the competing thoughts that often race through my brain: from career vs children to being single after 30 to feeling stuck in the choices we’ve made. She addresses things that we shouldn’t care about – but that we so deeply do.

“Being in your thirties is like a game of Snakes and Ladders. You may think you’re beating everyone, but you’re one dice-roll away from falling down a snake and suddenly coming last. And the person stuck on square four may randomly land on a ladder and suddenly overtake you in this game to get everything sorted before your ovaries go kaput.”

Just like Tori’s best-selling book helps fictional young women, HDYLMN would’ve been the perfect book for me at 21. I was with a horrible boy in a horrible relationship, and I couldn’t see a way out. I was scared of being alone, of not hitting the ‘married with kids by 28’ goal that society told me I needed.

There’s no neat resolution to HDYLMN. And it’s an ending that’s going to make me count down every single second between now and when her next book comes out (2020, FYI)

‼️spoiler alert‼️

At the end, Bourne says “I also hope, in a really small way, this book can help more Toris leave Toms”. And you know what? I really think it will. At the very least, it would’ve helped this girl make a big decision with way more confidence.

4*