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

Yes we are all different but there is so much we also have in common. Fitting in, pretending we do, hiding our complexities, body confidence issues, self sabotage, imposter syndrome. Jealousy.

I sped through this book empathising and loving reading about the clumsiness, confidence knocks, yearning for literary solitude, self sabotage, constantly evolving, trying to grasp life’s challenges, our comparative nature and trying to focus on who we are and not who someone else is. This book is beautifully and openly written. I can’t help but feel that the more we lay ourselves open the more we can understand and connect, yet success and honesty is unfortunately often met with scrutiny and jealousy. Something we should collectively work on.

Another important reminder that what we see on the surface is rarely indicative of the truth of a perceived charmed life. Millions of books sold worldwide, check. Still figuring out life? Yup.

I am a big fan of Amanda Prowse and have read most (if not all!) of her previous work. She’s a very talented writer and tackles some really deep subjects, producing thought provoking books. Which makes this book all the more impactful in that she lays her own life out there, showing the woman behind the stories. Emotive and entertaining, I really do recommend this book to anyone, whether you have read Amanda’s work before or not.

A fabulous book!
We are given a very detailed insight into Amanda's life, the good the bad and the ugly.
So much of what she wrote i found so relatable.
Thank you Amanda your story made me laugh and cry.
Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for an early copy and i happily give my honest review.

Amanda has put her life story out there in the real world for everyone to scrutinise. She has been very honest and open about her life in this memoir and I think she has been very brave.
She makes very valid points about how we view other people by their looks, celebrity status, monetary value etc and then makes you think hard about how much we really don't know about a person from the brief glimpses we get from newspapers, social media posts, television appearances etc.
If you want to find out the real woman behind the fabulous writer then this book is a must for you.

Wow!!! What a fantastic read by one of my most very favourite authors, a memoir filled with honesty and openness, thank you for sharing your life with me, loved every page