My Thoughts

Tom and Esme have been together for 10 years, for their anniversary Esme decides that they will play a game, the rules are simple, for every hour of the day, they must write down and remember their most significant memories, not the best moments, but the most significant, 1 memory for every hour of the day, for 24 hours.

I’d like to say that this was filled with hearts and flowers and fluffy unicorns, but alas is it a real look on love, not the love portrayed in books and movies.

We go back to the beginning of when they first met and how they became a couple, and travel with them throughout their time together.

I wasn’t too fussed on Esme at the beginning, she was a bit too bossy for my liking, and she also had these rules that Tom was supposed to stick to, and didn’t have much of a say in, I warmed to her later on though.

We also get to see how hard it is to live with someone with a mental illness, and how bloody hard it is to keep a relationship going, I loved that it didn’t shy away from anything, and there are some really raw subjects in the book to deal with.

It is about love, life and even though you know someone inside out, there is still a part of you that is scared of being rejected by the one person that you feel completes you.

It was a pretty short read (288 pgs), but it is packed full of content and I flew through the pages and loved it, it was like looking through a photo album, and getting snapshots of each picture you pick up.

**Thank you to NetGalley, the Author and Orion Publishing Group for a copy of this book**

About the book

Our Life in a Day is a breathtaking, ten-year love story told in twenty-four individual hours – for fans of One Day by David Nicholls, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, and The Note by Zoe Folbigg.

The rules are simple. Choose the most significant moments from your relationship – one for each hour in the day.
You’d probably pick when you first met, right?
And the instant you knew for sure it was love?
Maybe even the time you watched the sunrise after your first night together?

But what about the car journey on the holiday where everything started to go wrong?
Or your first proper fight?

Or that time you lied about where you’d been?

It’s a once in a lifetime chance to learn the truth. But if you had to be completely honest with the one you love, would you still play?

For Esme and Tom, the game is about to begin. And once they start, there’s no going back…

Hello book lovers,

I’m so pleased to bring you my review of this very deep, dark, but riveting audio book!

Why did you pick it up Vicci? – Because it is a pretty new release there has been a lot of talk about this book, especially on Goodreads, most of it was shouting TRIGGERS and BE CAREFUL warnings, so naturally it made me want to pick it up…I’m a bit of a rebel like that LOL.

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My Thoughts

When I wake up, all my friends are dead.

The first line of the book…….makes you want to read it right??

Be warned that this is, and has very graphic detail on drug addiction, if you are a recovering addict then this book could be extremely triggering for you, and you would be best to stay away from it until you are in a better mindset.

If you are OK reading this sort of thing, then this one is well worth a credit.

The story follows our MC Mickey Catalan, the narrator of this story, a young high school student that has a pretty good life, she is the star catcher in her Softball team and they are probably going to make it to the local history books with a win in a large tournament in the upcoming season.

We meet Mickey in the months before that hard hitting first line of the book, her and her friend are involved in a car crash as she is driving home from Softball practice, her friend damages her arm, and Mickey badly damages her leg.

She is obviously not able to play softball until her leg has healed properly and she is given a timescale for this, 12 weeks, but this is just before the new Softball season starts and she doesn’t want to be sidelined.

She is given medication (Oxy) for the obvious pain that she is in, but Mickey realises quite soon that if she takes more, then she can push herself a little bit harder, and will therefore be fit in time for the new season.

Unfortunately her problems are only just beginning, unbeknown to her, Oxy is is highly addictive, she is taking it for the pain, but she is soon not in so much pain, but still taking the tablets.

She begins to up her dosage as she becomes more and more addicted to the high, when she runs out of her medication she needs more, immediately! but her prescription shows that she should still have at least 2 weeks supply left, what is she to do?

This is where things start to go more and more downhill for Mickey, she buys them from someone, who then becomes friends with her, and introduces her to other people that can ‘help’

This book doesn’t pull any punches, it is brutal and dark, you see the slow downward spiral of Mickey, how she becomes disengaged with her other life and starts to slowly become a shadow of her former self.

This is a Young Adult book, but it really didn’t read that way to me, yes it is about young adults, but that is as far as the YA went for me. I think that it is an extremely important book, it shows that drug addicts don’t always look like the images that you see on TV, they don’t always end up laying in a park or a back-street somewhere, that can look quite normal and function just as well as you and me, and you would never know. It is only when the addiction starts to get out of hand, that the red flags and the warning signs start showing.

🎧🎧 – Brilliantly narrated by Brittany Pressley a new to me narrator, but one I will definitely be looking out for again.

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About the book

Heroine By: Mindy McGinnis Narrated by: Brittany Pressley Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins Release date: 03-12-19

A captivating and powerful exploration of the opioid crisis – the deadliest drug epidemic in American history – through the eyes of a college-bound softball star. Edgar Award-winning author Mindy McGinnis delivers a visceral and necessary novel about addiction, family, friendship, and hope.

When a car crash sidelines Mickey just before softball season, she has to find a way to hold on to her spot as the catcher for a team expected to make a historic tournament run. Behind the plate is the only place she’s ever felt comfortable, and the painkillers she’s been prescribed can help her get there.

The pills do more than take away pain; they make her feel good.

With a new circle of friends – fellow injured athletes, others with just time to kill – Mickey finds peaceful acceptance and people with whom words come easily, even if it is just the pills loosening her tongue.

But as the pressure to be Mickey Catalan heightens, her need increases, and it becomes less about pain and more about want, something that could send her spiraling out of control.